Filed on March 12, 2018 | Last updated on March 12, 2018 at 05.44 am

No UAE nationals on board private plane from Sharjah that crashed in Iran

The Civil Aviation Department said the plane did not apply for maintenance procedures while on the ground at the Sharjah airport.

Eleven people were killed when a private Turkish plane crashed in Iran while travelling from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul on Sunday, a civil aviation spokesman said according to ISNA news agency.

The private plane that crashed on Sunday evening in southwestern Iran had no UAE nationals on board, a statement from the Sharjah Civil Aviation Department (SCAD) said.

According to SCAD, a private 604 Bompadier Turkish TCTRB took off at 5.16 pm local time from Sharjah International Airport en route to Istanbul Ataturk Airport and disappeared from the radar after leaving the UAE at 7.30 pm.

At the time of its departure, the plane had eight passengers and three crew members on board, six Turkish and two Spanish.

There are no clear reasons for the crash until official investigations by the Iranian and Turkish authorities are completed.

The Department of Civil Aviation in Sharjah expresses deep sorrow for the incident and extends its sincere condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims.

The plane had left from the emirate of Sharjah and went down near the city of Shahr-e Kord, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of Tehran, it reported.

Iranian state television quoted Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman of the country's emergency management organization, as saying the plane hit a mountain in Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames.

Shahr-e Kord is some 370 kilometres (230 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. The state-run IRNA news agency and state television said rescuers were trying to reach the scene.

Villagers near the crash say they saw flames coming from the plane's engine before the crash, according to a report by Iran's state-run judiciary news agency Mizan.

The semi-official Fars news agency said the plane took off from Sharjah International Airport on its way to Istanbul. Officials at the airport did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sunday's crash comes after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short-distance regional flying, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people on board in February.