Don’t Blame Sanctions for Mismanagement

Last week after an Iranian passenger plane belonging to Sepahan Air crashed on take-off killing more than 40 of its passengers, Iran’s president suspended all the flights of Iran-140 aircraft, a domestically manufactured plane based on the Russian Antonov An-22 model, until the end of an investigation of the incident. This flight suspension comes after the aircraft’s six previous crashes since 2003. Earlier, members of Iran’s parliament had visited the manufacturing facilities of the plane in Iran and had warned their concerns about the safety of the plane and its engines. Rooz has talked with a member of parliament and an official from the State Aviation Organization. The official stressed that if the plane had a problem it would not have been given permission to fly. The member of parliament, Ali Akbar Aghai who is a member of the development committee, asserted that the State Aviation Organization should be held accountable for the accident and why did it issue the flight permit for the plane. He added that he his own personal flight experience with the plane was that the flight of the plane was not “normal,” and so the plane should not have been given the license to fly. Here are the excerpts of the interview.

 

Rooz: Mr. Aghai, Iran-140 has had a number of crashes. Who is responsible for this and what will the Majlis do?

 

Ali Akbar Aghai: We will pursue this and the next session of the development committee of the Majlis will be held at the State Aviation Organization to investigate.  The special committee on accidents will investigate as will the Majlis. But regarding Iran-140 aircraft, I will say that doubts over the safety of the plane existed from the beginning. As you know it is the Sate Aviation Organization that issues flight permits for aircraft.

 

Rooz: What doubts? And if such doubts existed, then why was this plane allowed to operate?

 

Aghai: I have flown on this plane once from Mehrabad airport to Imam Khomeini airport. The plane was not normal. Experts must announce their opinion, but my opinion is that it must be investigated why was this plane given permission to fly and why were the safety measures not followed through resulting in a crash.

 

Rooz: So the State Aviation Organization issued flight permissions disregarding the warnings and concerns.

 

Aghai: Yes, the organization issues flight permits and it must check everything. It must be held accountable. We shall try to have Majlis representatives sit on the investigation board that will work under the State Aviation Organization. It must be made clear why permission has been given to this type of aircraft to fly.

 

Rooz: Some say that sanctions are the cause of the crash while others say it is mismanagement.

 

Aghai: Sanctions should not be used as an excuse for mismanagement. This is a Russian aircraft and has nothing to do with sanctions. Russians themselves have taken this plane out of passenger service.

 

Rooz: So they have taken it out of service while we have just started producing it?

 

Aghai: Yes, this is the domestically built version. Perhaps the accident happened because it is domestically manufactured. We must wait for the investigation board to complete its job.

 

Rooz: Will Alireza Jahangirian resign?

 

But the State Aviation Organization is not willing to accept this responsibility and argues that the problem is not necessarily with the plane but a human or technical issue.

 

Rooz called Jahangirian, the head of the State Aviation Organization, who said he was at the hospital where the victims of the crash were being treated and then passed his mobile phone to his deputy, Hamid Habibi who said that the Iran-140 aircraft had all the necessary standards adding that the results of the investigation would be communicated to the members of the development committee of the Majlis.

 

Rooz: Mr. Habibi, why was flight permission given to Iran-140 while the plane has a bad flight record. A Majlis member has said that he expressed his safety concerns during a visit to the manufacturing plant of the plane?

 

Habibi: The Organization is required by law to be strict with regarding its work and so if the plane did not have the right flight permissions it would not have been given a license to fly.

 

Rooz: So then why was this plane given the permission to fly? Mr. Aghai, a member of the Majlis development committee has had personal experience flying on the plane and he has said he did not have a normal flight …

 

Habibi: I do not know what flight the members of the committee have flown and what plane was involved. But certainly the flight documents of the plane must have been valid for it to get a flight permit.

 

Rooz: So the concerns of Majlis members about the plane were justified in view of this latest crash.

 

Habibi: This plane is used for flights in other countries. It is used in the country where it was originally designed. This means it has obtained the necessary licenses. Now that an accident has taken place, we must wait for the investigation to do its job. It is not right to say that the plane did not have permission to fly. This plane most certainly possessed the necessary permits to fly. The aircraft and its personnel are all checked prior to a flight.

 

Rooz: But Mr. Khosravi has said that this aircraft could not obtain a license to operate outside the country.

 

Habibi: I do not know what he means by that but this aircraft does fly in other countries as well, such as Ukraine and Russian. These countries possess (aircraft) technology. This plane did have the permits.

 

Rooz: This plane has till now had four crashes and other issues. How come its use was not suspended?

 

Habibi: Probably the necessary investigations and corrective measures were taken. This accident could have been because of human error or a technical issue. It is not right to say there was a problem with the plane. If it is found that the problem is with the aircraft then its flights would be suspended.

 

Rooz: How many planes must crash and how many people must die for you to reach this conclusion?

 

Habibi: The results of the investigation can throw light on this. We too await the results of the investigation.

 

Rooz: Some Majlis representatives believe that mismanagement from the State Aviation Organization is the cause of this latest crash because it issued the flight permits, and so it is responsible for the accident.

 

Habibi: The Organization is accountable to the government and the people. The investigation will determine the causes of the accident and who is responsible and whether the Organization did not do its job. I hope that when the investigation is concluded members of the Majlis too will be satisfied.

 

Rooz: If this had happened in any country the head of its aviation organization would have resigned. But Mr. Jahangirian has not. If the investigation finds that the Organization is responsible will Mr. Jahangirian resign?

 

I do not know. He is the head of the Organization and has a big responsibility. Accepting the responsibility for this is not easy. But you can be certain that an accident is the result of a series of events and not just one.

 

Yesterday’s crash left 38 people dead and injured nine others. The coroner’s office announced that 22 of the dead were men, 10 were women, three were children, an adolescent girl and an infant. One person died in hospital. The physical condition of the victims in hospital were described to be very bad.

 

One surviving passenger told Sky News, “moments after take-off, one of the wings of the plane fell off and the plane lost control and hit the ground creating wide opening in the fuselage. We jumped out and immediately after that the plane caught fire.”

 

Fars news agency quoted one of the survivors to have said, “Soon after take-off one of the engines of the plane stopped working. While no reports have been published about the pilot or the crew, it became evident later that the plane had intended to return to Mehrabad after take-off. That is when its wing hit something leading the accident. This happened about three minutes after take-off.  “I was sitting in a set next to the right wing of the plane. The plane caught fire after hitting the ground and were suffered burns,” one survivor said.

 

Iran-140 is manufactured in Iran under license from the Russian model Antonov AN-140. Khabar Online has reported that the project of domestically manufacturing this plane was questioned by experts right from the beginning. The low quality of the aircraft, particularly its engines, are the reasons why airlines refrain from buying it. Initially, the airline that had purchased one of the aircraft returned it to the manufacturer. But despite this, the State Aviation Organization which produces the aircraft insists on continuing this assembly project. Until 2004, some 200 billion Rials had been provided to the organization as credit to create the Sepahan Airline so it would purchase the aircraft.

 

Ahmad Majidi, the deputy Minister of Transportation has told Fars news agency that reading the audio tapes of the flight and the flight recorder information may take time. “It may be necessary to send the black boxes to the original manufacturer which would require communications through the ministry of foreign affairs,” he said.