All 66 people on board a passenger plane that crashed in a mountainous region of southern Iran Sunday are presumed dead, according to the airline.
The Aseman Airlines plane was flying from Tehran to the southwestern city of Yasuj when it disappeared 50 minutes into the flight, according to a post on the airline’s Instagram account.
The flight, which departed at 7:55 a.m. local time (11.25 p.m. ET Saturday), crashed in Kohangan village, 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Semirom town, authorities told Iran’s Fars News Agency .
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, expressed his condolences to the victims and their families, ordering officials to spare no efforts in their rescue operation, reported the state-run Islamic News Agency (IRNA).
The ATR plane, a twin-engine turboprop typically used for short distance regional flights, hit the Dena Mountains, the report said.
The 66 people on board included 60 passengers, two flight attendants, two pilots and two members of security forces.
Aseman Airlines posted an image of the plane involved in the crash on its Instagram account.
Twenty rescue teams have been dispatched to the crash site, with a helicopter earlier forced to turn back due to bad weather.
“This is a snow-covered mountainous area, much like the Rockies in America or the European Alps,” CNN’s Senior International Correspondent Sam Kiley said. “Any rescue operation will depend entirely on the weather.”
