Sepahan Airlines (SPN, Isfahan Hesa) and Iranian Police (Shiraz) have been forced to ground their respective fleets of Iran-140 turboprop aircraft following the crash of EP-GPA (cn 36525305018) on climb out from Tehran Mehrabad on Sunday, August 10. The disaster killed 39 people on board.
In the wake of the crash, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani issued a directive grounding all aircraft of the type until a Minister of Roads and Urban Development-led investigation had uncovered the root cause.
According to IRNA, Sepahan Airlines flight SPN 5915 had just taken off from Mehrabad airport en-route to the central desert town of Tabas when it suffered a catastrophic engine failure. Forty-eight people, among them several children, were on board the plane.
The Iran-140 is a variant of the An-140 built by HESA Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries (Isfahan Hesa) under licence from the Antonov Design Bureau (Gostomel).
