A wealthy Turkish socialite and seven of her friends were killed on Sunday after the airplane carrying them home from her bachelorette party crashed in Iran, according to Turkish media reports and the head of the Turkish Red Crescent.
All 11 people on board the flight from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul, Turkey were killed when the plane crashed in the southwestern Iranian city of Shahr-e Kord, the head of Iran’s civil aviation office told the Iranian state-run news agency IRNA.
Mina Basaran, the daughter of a Turkish billionaire, was named in a tweet as one of the passengers on the plane by Kerem Kinik, the president of the Turkish Red Crescent.
The plane reportedly belonged to Turkish billionaire Huseyin Basaran, owner of Basaran Holding, which is well known for its work in energy, food and tourism, finance and construction sectors, according to Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper.
Mina Basaran was the eldest of his two children, and Mina Towers — one of Istanbul’s biggest construction projects — was being handled by Basaran’s company and was named after his daughter, CNN Turk reported.
Mina Basaran had been expected to marry Murat Gezer on April 14 at Ciragan Sarayi, a five-star hotel in Istanbul, according to Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper.
The socialite and her friends posted about their trip together on Instagram. The final photo on Mina Basaran’s account showed the women at the One and Only Royal Mirage luxury hotel in Dubai, Turkish media reported. The Instagram account has since been closed.
A statement by Turkey’s Armed Forces confirmed that a plane had been sent to the crash site to help remove the wreckage, a Turkish army spokesperson told CNN.
Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu quoted a statement from the country’s Ministry of Transport, in which it stated that the aircraft had crashed soon after making a call about an unspecified “technical failure.”
The plane vanished from radar at approximately 14.40 GMT Sunday, 70 minutes after it had taken off, Turkish media reported, citing the Turkish ministry of transport.
The deputy governor of Iran’s Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, where the plane crashed, said the plane’s black box was found in the Helen Mountains in the Kiyar district, IRNA reported Monday.
Mojtaba Khaledi, spokesman for the Iranian Emergency Managament Organization, said DNA tests would be required to identify the bodies, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA).