Mashhad - Tehran

On January 21, 1980 at 07:11 PM, Mashhad - Tehran experienced a crash involving Boeing 727-100, operated by Iran Air, with the event recorded near Tehran Tehran City District.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was landing (descent or approach) at a mountains crash site.

128 people were known to be on board, 128 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 8, crew fatalities: 8, passengers on board: 120, passenger fatalities: 120, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is technical failure. On the day of the accident, Iranian air traffic controllers went on strike, which led to hundreds of domestic flights being cancelled. At 1600LT the strike was interrupted and flights resumed. At 1740LT, the airplane departed Mashad Airport on schedule service IR291 to Tehran-Mehrabad Airport with 120 passengers and a crew of eight on board. At 1852LT, ATC based at Tehran-Mehrabad Airport cleared the crew for a direct approach to runway 29. At 1905LT, the dispatcher instructed the crew to take a 360° heading to reach the non-directional beacon of Varamin. On approach, the copilot informed the captain that the VORTAC was giving a wrong radial course but the captain failed to respond to this message. At 1911LT, while descending in limited visibility due to night, snow falls and foggy conditions, the airplane struck the slope of a mountain located in the Alborz Mountain Range. The wreckage was found few hours later in a snow covered terrain about 29 km north of Tehran Airport. The aircraft disintegrated on impact and none of the 128 occupants survived the crash.

Aircraft reference details include registration EP-IRD, MSN 19817/537, year of manufacture 1968.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 35.6955°, 51.0287°.