Monday, 23 December 2002
– Iran
Aeromist-Kharkiv Flight 2137, a charter flight from Trabzon Airport (TZX/LTCG), Turkey, to Isfahan-Shahid Beheshti Airport (IFN/OIFM), Iran, operated with an Antonov An-140, registration UR-14003, crashed into a mountain near Baghrabad, Iran.
The six crew and 38 passengers perished. (44 fatalities)
The crash of Flight 2137 is the 15th deadliest aviation crash on Iranian soil. It is also the deadliest crash involving the Antonov An-140.
– Details:
The Antonov 140 departed Kharkov at 11:23 for a flight to Isfahan, Iran via Trabzon. The passengers, aerospace scientists and executives including several Russian and Ukrainian specialists and officials, were to visit the test flight of the Iran-140, an Antonov 140 built under license in Iran. At 13:45 the flight landed at Trabzon, Turkey for refueling. About one hour later, at 14:51, the plane took off heading for Isfahan. While descending towards Isfahan in an area of poor visibility, the aircraft collided with a mountain.
– Cause: “Iran’s civil aviation authority announced that a pilot’s failure to correctly use a cockpit global positioning system (GPS) caused the crash.”
