Why Do So Many Planes Crash in Iran?

Ben Leffell writes on eTN and asked the question: Why are there so many plane crashes in Iran?

It’s an epidemic, statisticly speaking, with nine fatal accidents since 2002 and as many as 302 killed in a single flight. eTN has the story. “The maintenance of the aircraft could certainly be an issue.

“The fact is Iran is a country which has been subjected to sanctions for the better part of 30 years. If you don’t have free access to regular trading with the most experienced parts of the world in civil aviation safety, it stands to reason that you won’t have the best equipment available to you,” says David Kaminski-Morrow, deputy news editor of Flight International Magazine.

Some Iranian officials have expressed a similar but more acutely placed sentiment. Managing director of Iran national carrier, Iran Air, Davoud Keshavarzian told the official Iranian news agency IRNA: “Sanctions prevent Iran from purchasing aircraft, even if only 10 percent of the parts are US-made.”

Whether or not the US makes it extremely difficult, which they likely do, for Iran to acquire airplane equipment, placing blame on America does not bring back those who perished in the crashes. Furthermore, it must be considered irresponsible to put an aircraft carrying a nation’s military personnel and citizens in the air when the managing director of the national carrier feels he cannot adequately acquire the equipment necessary to fly safely.

Butterworth-Hayes strongly disagrees with Keshavarzian’s point of view.

“The United States is not the only supplier of parts. Europe supplies just as many airplanes now as the US does. A lot of Iran’s infrastructure is based on Russian equipment and Russian equipment can be flown [in] just as safely as American or European equipment. So to blame America is not feasible,” he says. “