An Iranian military plane carrying at least 94 people burst into flames and smashed into a Tehran apartment block on Tuesday, killing all those on board and others on the ground, police and witnesses said.Interior Ministry spokesman Mojtaba Mirabdollahi told the ISNA students news agency the death toll was 116.A government official estimated the apartment block housed about 250 people. An interior ministry spokesman said he could confirm six to 10 deaths on the ground.A police spokesman told state radio all passengers and crew on board the C-130 transport were killed when it hit the building in densely populated southern Tehran.The plane, which belonged to the Iranian Air Force, was bound for the southern port of Bandar Abbas and many of the passengers were local journalists who were going to cover military exercises in the Gulf.The pilot had reported engine trouble and requested an emergency landing at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, but crashed just short of the runway, police said.Iranian media quoted witnesses as saying one of the plane’s wings was on fire as it came down. Iranian reporters and cameramen at the scene were weeping because they knew colleagues on board.Witnesses said the nose of the aircraft had been destroyed while its fuselage was blackened by smoke. Schools were closed because of smog, raising fears that more children than usual would have been at home when the plane crashed at 2.10 pm. A policemen said he saw burned corpses of several children.‘‘Some people were throwing themselves out of windows. I saw two die like that,’’ another policeman said. Passerby Hassan Hedayati, his face covered in dust and hands caked with dried blood, said he was among the first on the scene. ‘‘I pulled 30 bodies out of the plane. They were all charred,’’ he said.The apartment block, which was still standing, is in the Shahrak-e Towhid neighbourhood inhabited by members of the military and their families. It lies on the flightpath to Mehrabad airport.Scuffles broke out as police cordoned off the area, trying to keep back hundreds of anxious residents trying to push past them. Emergency services were using helicopters, ambulances and buses to evacuate the dead and wounded. PTI
