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A passenger plane carrying 66 people - including one child - has crashed into the snow-covered Dena mountain in central Iran, killing everyone on board.

The plane belonging to Aseman Airlines, which is banned from EU airspace, had reportedly made an emergency landing earlier this month and re-entered service after being grounded for seven years and overhauled.

It was flying from the capital Tehran to Yasuj when it vanished from radar about 90 minutes after take-off.

The airline told Iranian media that all 60 passengers and six crew members were killed when the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop plane went down in bad weather. It later retracted its statement because recovery teams had not yet reached the crash site.

The site is near Semirom in Isfahan province, about 480 miles south of Tehran. Helicopters carrying recovery teams were unable to fly to the remote location due to dense fog and a blizzard.

A drone was sent over the mountain range to look for wreckage, as crews try to reach the site on foot.

(Image: Natalie Amiri/ARD)

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Domestic flight EP3704 took off from Tehran's Mehrabad Airport just after 8am local time on a roughly two-hour journey to Yasuj, but soon disappeared from radar screens, sparking a wide search.

The flight-tracking website Flightradar24 reported that the plane's last signal was received just before 9.30am local time when the plane was at 16,975ft and losing altitude.

A passenger on board the doomed plane sent a chilling final photo to his girlfriend just before take-off, reported Tehran-based journalist Natalie Amiri of German broadcaster ARD.

The young man snapped an image of one of the plane’s wings and propellers, and wrote: “May God protect us to arrive safe".

A man who said he missed the doomed flight told Iran's Tabnak News Agency: "God has been really kind to me but I am so sad from the bottom of my heart for all those dear ones who lost their lives."

Iranian media published photos of the pilots, including the experienced captain, and two air marshals, as well as a passenger list.

People who live near the 14,465ft mountain told local media that it appeared the plane's crew were looking for a place to land in a pasture before the crash, and they heard a "tremendous" collision between 9.30am and 9.40am.

The airline confirmed that there were no survivors.

Spokesman Mohammed Tabatabai told reporters: "After searches in the area, unfortunately we were informed that the plane crashed.

"Unfortunately, all our dear ones lost their lives in this incident."

(Image: Eh kia) (Image: REX/Shutterstock)

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

The six crew members on the short-haul flight were the two pilots, two flight attendants and two security officers.

Reports said Hojjatallah Foulad, the captain of the doomed plane, was hailed a hero after he was involved in an earlier emergency.

In 2013, he safely landed an ATR 72 at Yasuj airport following an engine failure.

In the aftermath of the crash, TV news footage and photos showed passengers' devastated families waiting for updates at the airports in Tehran and Yasuj. Relatives wept as they spoke to journalists about their loved ones and showed some of their final text messages.

Rescue teams - including 12 crews from Iran's Red Crescent - were sent to the site to search for survivors. However the effort has now become a recovery mission.

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The search was hampered by the remote location of the crash site and bad weather, including snow, dense fog and high winds. Emergency workers were trying to reach the site by land after helicopters were unable to land.

Mojtaba Khaledi, a spokesman for the national emergency services, told reporters: "Given the fact that the area is mountainous, it is not possible to send ambulances."

During the search officials attempted to trace the plane's final location using signals from mobile phones, but they had no success.

The ATR 72 plane involved in Sunday morning's crash was 25 years old, and had suffered a number of technical faults during its lifetime, it was reported.

It was forced to make an emergency landing when it suffered a technical fault on February 5.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock) (Image: REX/Shutterstock)

It was said that the plane had previously been out of service for seven years, and was put back into operation after undergoing a major overhaul.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were among the foreign leaders who offered condolences.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani issued messages of condolence, and the president asked the country's transport minister to lead an investigation into the crash.

The Ayatollah said the tragedy had "filled our hearts with grief and sorrow".

Initially, there were conflicting reports over the number of people on board, with some media in Iran putting the total at 66 and others at close to 100.

However, the airline later confirmed that the aircraft was an ATR 72 carrying 66 passengers and crew.

(Image: Shahram Sharifi) (Image: Getty)

Based in Tehran, semi-private Aseman Airlines is the third largest carrier in Iran, with a fleet of 29 planes, including six ATR 72 aircraft.

It is on the European Union's blacklist of unsafe airlines, banning it from operating within EU airspace.

Sunday's crash was at least the second air disaster in the company's history, and the second deadly incident for a commercial airline this month.

In October 1994, one of its planes, a Fokker F28 Fellowship, was flying from Isfahan to Tehran when both engines failed and it crashed into a mountain near Natanz. All 66 passengers and crew were killed.

Last week, 71 people died when a Saratov Airlines flight from Moscow to Orsk in Russia crashed shortly after take-off.

(Image: Getty)

Iran has suffered multiple aviation disasters, most recently in 2014 when a Sepahan plane crashed killing 39 people.

Decades of international sanctions have left the Middle Eastern country with an ageing fleet of passenger planes which it has struggled to maintain and modernise, AFP reported.

Aseman Airlines' three Boeing 727-200s are almost as old as the Islamic revolution, having made their first flights in 1980, but last year the carrier had agreed a deal to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3bn, with an option to buy 30 more.

The deal could be scrapped if US President Donald Trump follows through on a threat to reimpose sanctions.

Lifting sanctions on aviation purchases was a key clause in the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015.

ATR, based in Toulouse, France, is a joint venture between Airbus and Italy's Leonardo.