cargo 707 down in Iran
 

Seems sadly a Boeing 707 cargo flight has crashed in Iran - reports 10 crew did not survive The plane went down near Fath airport, near Karaj in the central Iranian province of Alborz in poor wx.
Reuters
Not immediately clear who owned the plane. A spokesman for Iran’s civil aviation told state TV that the plane belonged to Kyrgyzstan. A spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport said the plane, en route from Kyrgyzstan’s Manas airport, says belonged to Iran’s Payam Air but other reports say that the plane belonged to the Iranian military's air force. 16 souls on board.

According to the Avherald, they landed at the wrong airfield and overran the rwy...

Avherald

Most sources show it as being operated by the Iranian Air Force. Delivered new to them in 1976, flew for Saha during most of the Noughties before returning to the IRIAF in 2009.

thanks for the update Dave - some airline pals of mine did enthusiasts flights some years ago on a SAHA 707

Viz reported as 3000m. Given the proximity of Fath to Karaj (5nms) and that Fath sits more or less on the final approach to Karah, is this a case of during a non precision approach aiming for the first runway that they saw? The far smaller runway at Fath perhaps giving the illusion that it was farther away than it really was? Very sad, and given that something similar happened almost happened in November, surely avoidable.

Indeed, different wx though as that one was being vectored then cleared for a visual after declaring (wrong) runway in sight.

Incident: Taban MD88 at Karaj on Nov 16th 2018, went around from very low height at wrong airport

The runway they landed on is only 1,200 m long as opposed to the runway they were supposed to land on, 3,600 m. I wonder what nav equipment they had on board?

According to my Jepp there are only VOR/DME and NDB approaches available.

Does 16 strike anyone else as a rather large crew for a cargo flight?

Doesn't really matter. In recent memory pilots have managed to land at the wrong airport in an A320, 737-700, C-17 and the Boeing LCF "Dreamlifter" Modern Avionics seems not to be a cure for landing in the wrong place.

Not sure if the 16 applies only to souls on board or if this includes soules on the ground as well.

Either way - R.I.P. - sad story

The linked article says crew but it's certainly possible that is a reporting/translation error and that some were ground fatalities.

Hmmmm - is this one of the last 707s in service?, there cannot be many left other than the USAF tankers etc.

Add a Saudi Arabian B747 in 2013 in India to the list, very similar circumstances.
https://www.business-standard.com/ar...0301058_1.html

This B707 must be one of the last in the world to still have been flying and at 43 years old I doubt the avionics were up to modern day standards. Simulator training would also be considerably behind what we take for granted today, if it was available at all.

Unfortunately until Iran comes in from the cold and meets the requirements to have sanctions lifted, its aviation sectors both civil and military will continue to suffer.

Also an Ethiopian 767 which landed at Arusha instead of Kili Intl mistakenly in 2013...
https://news.aviation-safety.net/201...ding-incident/

Etc. Includes E3 Awacs , how many on civil registers

None according to Wikipedia , I had thought there were a lot more built.

Faa register lists 18740,18835,18839,20177,18586,21368,20804 and 21049

The E3 is supposed to be built on a 717 frame, but to the untrained eye, I could not spot the difference.

Jon

If it had been built on the 717 frame, you would certainly be able to tell the difference.

The (original) Boeing 717 was the model designation for initial variants of the C-135/KC-135 Stratolifter/Stratotanker. The E-3 is based on the 707.

The houses were reportedly empty, at least at the time of the accident, so there were no ground fatalities.