Shiraz – Marvdasht – Tehran

On April 17, 1961 at 10:00 AM, Shiraz – Marvdasht – Tehran experienced a crash involving Rockwell Aero Commander 500, operated by Air Taxi Company, with the event recorded near Ardestan Isfahan.

The flight was categorized as charter/taxi (non scheduled revenue flight) and the reported phase was flight at a mountains crash site.

5 people were known to be on board, 5 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 1, crew fatalities: 1, passengers on board: 4, passenger fatalities: 4, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is weather. On 16 April the aircraft departed Mehrabad Airport at 0228Z on a charter flight to Yazd and Bandar Abbas. On the same day the first stage of the return flight was made to Shiraz where an overnight stop was made. Next day EP-ABA left Shiraz at 0245Z to pick up four passengers at Marvdasht. At 0525Z it departed Marvdasht on a direct flight to Mehrabad Airport, Tehran, ETA 0800Z. A last contact was made with Esfahan at 0630Z reporting its position as 20 miles east of Esfahan - VFR, flight level 150, ETA Mehrabad 0800Z. This was the last message received from the aircraft. On 19 April word was received at Mehrabad Airport that the aircraft had crashed on the mountain 40 km south of Ardestan and 18 km west of Zafarkand Village. The pilot and four passengers were killed in the accident and the aircraft was destroyed.

Aircraft reference details include registration EP-ABA.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 33.3743°, 52.3688°.