Iranian passenger plane slides off runway into highway, passengers safe
It ran out of runway when landing at Mahshahr airport with no casualties
Dubai - A Caspian Airlines plane slid off the runway onto a highway on landing at an airport in southwestern Iran on Monday, but all passengers were evacuated without injury, Iranian state media reported.
"The Caspian Airlines Boeing Flight No. 6936 with 135 passengers had left Tehran for Mahshahr on early Monday morning.
It ran out of runway when landing at Mahshahr airport with no casualties," state news agency IRNA reported.
IRNA, quoting local aviation officials, said a technical issue delayed the plane's landing which caused the accident.
"The plane did not catch fire and all passengers safely left the plane," managing Director of Khuzestan Airports Mohammad Reza Rezaei told IRNA.
On Saturday, an Iranian airplane en route from Tehran to Istanbul made an emergency landing at a Tehran airport because of a technical problem, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Iran's airlines have been plagued by crashes, which Iranian rulers blame on U.S. sanctions that block the airlines from replacing their ageing fleets or purchasing spare parts from the West.