[Al Arabiya Latest] An Iranian airliner en route to Armenia caught fire mid-air and plunged flaming into farmland Wednesday, killing all 168 people on board in the worst air disaster in Iran in years.Witnesses and state media said the Russian-made Caspian Airlines plane was ablaze before smashing into the ground and exploding near a village northeast of Tehran shortly after taking off from the capital's international airport.
Television images showed a vast crater at the disaster site littered with debris of plane parts, shoes and clothes in Iran's worst plane crash in six years.
The aircraft, travelling to Armenia's capital Yerevan from Tehran, crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin shortly before noon (0730 GMT) after about 16 minutes in the air.
"The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burnt and destroyed," Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Iranian television showed footage of debris and body parts and a smoking trench with mangled pieces of metal scattered around. Smoke rose from the site as police and bystanders gathered around.
Senior Iranian provincial official, Sirous Saberi, said the aircraft had had technical problems and tried to make an emergency landing. "Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed," he told Fars.