Image copyright Reuters Image caption Search-and-rescue teams found the plane's wreckage on a mountainside near Shahr-e Kord

All 11 people who were on board a private Turkish jet that crashed in south-western Iran on Sunday are dead, Iranian state media report.

The jet was flying from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul when it came down in the Zagros Mountains.

It had eight passengers, who Turkish media identified as Mina Basaran, the daughter of Turkish businessman Huseyin Basaran, and seven of her friends.

They had reportedly visited the UAE to celebrate her forthcoming marriage.

The cause of the crash is not yet known, but Iran's state news agency Irna cited an official as saying that the aircraft's "black boxes" had been recovered.

Mina Basaran, 28, flew to the UAE with her friends last week for a hen party.

She had been posting photos of their trip on her Instagram account, which has more than 65,000 followers. The last picture, which was posted on Saturday, showed eight women posing in pink and white bath robes at a Dubai hotel.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Mina Basaran was reportedly on the board of Turkey's Basaran Investment Holding

On Sunday afternoon, they boarded the jet belonging to Huseyin Basaran's company, Basaran Investment Holding, at Sharjah International Airport. The two pilots and one flight attendant were also women, Turkish media said.

Data from the FlightRadar24 website shows that about 80 minutes after taking off the jet rapidly gained altitude and then dropped more than 3,050m (10,000ft) before disappearing off the radar.

The Isan news agency cited Iranian civil aviation officials as saying the pilot had requested to fly at a lower altitude due to technical problems.

Image copyright AFP Image caption The Iranian Red Crescent told state media that all 11 bodies had been recovered

A witness told state television that the jet was on fire before it crashed near the city of Shahr-e Kord, about 370km (230 miles) south of Tehran.

Photos of the scene of the crash published on Monday showed the wreckage of the plane spread over a mountainside.

It also cited a local Red Crescent official, Reza Zaheri, as saying that all 11 bodies had been recovered from the scene after a 15-hour operation that involved 80 people.

Turkey's ministry of transport said it would send a team of investigators to the scene.

The crash comes less than a month after a passenger plane operated by Iran's Aseman Airlines crashed in the Zagros Mountains en route from Tehran to Yasuj, killing all 66 people on board.</s>The daughter of a top businessman and her seven friends died along with three crew members when a private plane crashed on Sunday

Wealthy Turkish socialite and business heir Mina Basaran, 28, and her seven friends were killed on Sunday when a private plane travelling from Sharjah to Istanbul crashed in Iran.

Three female crew members were also killed in the accident.

The trip to the UAE was a hen party to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Ms Basaran to Murat Gezer, owner of print shop Metprint Baski Sistemler. According to Turkish media, they were engaged in October at Istanbul’s Soho House and were due to be married on April 14 at Ciragan Sarayi, a five-star hotel on the Bosphorus that is a former Ottoman palace.

On Monday morning, the website of Metprint Baski Sistemler went down due to heavy traffic.

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Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the plane that went down in south-west Iran belonged to a company named Basaran Holding, the private holding company of Turkish businessman Huseyin Basaran, Mina's father.

Mr Basaran is a former deputy chairman of Trabzonspor football club, and his company has invested in many sectors including yachting, finance, construction, tourism, aviation, cement and energy.

His empire started with a hazelnut business in Trabzon in north-eastern Turkey.

Ms Basaran, the eldest of two children and the only daughter, was part of the company’s board of managers and reportedly in line to run the business.

In this photo provided by the Iranian Labor News Agency, ILNA, rescue workers wait for the bodies of passengers from a Turkish private jet that crashed on Sunday in the Zagros Mountains, outside of the city of Shahr-e Kord, outside of the city of Shahr-e Kord, some 370 kilometers, or 230 miles, south of the capital, Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 12, 2018. Investigators on Monday found the "black box" from the jet that crashed on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul, killing all 11 people on board, including a Turkish bride-to-be and her bachelorette party. (Mostafa Safari/ILNA, via AP) The rescue team members carry the body of a passenger of a the private jet that crashed on Sunday in the Zagros Mountains outside of the city of Shahr-e Kord. Alireza Motamedi / Tasnim News Agency via AP A view shows the site of a crashed plane owned by the private holding company of Turkish businessman Huseyin Basaran. Tasnim News Agency / Reuters People gather near the site of a private plane crash, Iran. Tasnim News Agency / Reuters Members of the Iranian Red Crescent carry a body recovered from a wreckage of the private jet which crashed in the mountains around the city of Shahr-e Kord. Alireza Motamedi / EPA The wreckage of private jet is seen on a slope of a mountain around the city of Shahr-e Kord, Iran. Alireza Motamedi / EPA Members of the Iranian Red Crescent carry a body recovered from the wreckage of the prrivate jet which crashed in the mountains around the city of Shahr-e Kord, Iran. Morteza Salehi / EPA Members of the Iranian Red Crescent carry a body recovered from a wreckage of the private jet in the mountains around the city of Shahr-e Kord, Iran. Morteza Salehi / EPA Members of the Iranian Red Crescent carry a body recovered from a wreckage of the private jet in the mountains around the city of Shahr-e Kord, Iran. Morteza Salehi / EPA

Also on board was Liana Hananel, founder of clothing brand Lily and Rose, a luxury designer swimwear brand, Zeynep Coskun, Jasmin Baruh Siloni, Asli Izmirli, Ayse And, Sinem Akay and Burcu Urfali.

Akay studied fashion in Italy and worked in the fashion and clothing sector.

Ms Urfali also worked in fashion, having studied at Istanbul Technical University and later in New York. She started her own fashion label in 2015 called Bug Uniform, making bespoke work uniforms.

Ms Siloni and Ms Izmir were jewellery designers, and the latter was also the owner of Izmir Jewellery.

Ms Coskun was the daughter of Orhan Coskun, the owner of the Toyota Akkoyunlu Company in Bursa and one of Ms Basaran's closest friends.

Ms And also studied in New York and was working as a psychologist in Turkey.

Ms Basaran posted images of her and her friends on the trip to Instagram profile, which, following the sad news, jumped from 58,000 followers to over 86,700 in a few hours. The account has now been set to private.

The last photo on her Instagram account showed the women at the One and Only Royal Mirage luxury hotel in Dubai.

Wealthy Turkish socialite Mina Basaran and her seven friends were killed when their private plane crashed in Iran. Instagram @minabasaran

Mina Towers, one of Istanbul’s biggest construction projects, was being handled by Mr Basaran's company and was named after his daughter.

Ms Basaran graduated from Koc University Business Administration Department and completed a master's degree in London. She has also appeared in fashion magazines such as Vogue Turkey.

According to Hurriyet Daily News, Kerem Kinik, the head of the Turkish Red Crescent, said on Twitter on March 11 that search and rescue teams were deployed to the area of the incident

A website associated with Iranian state TV said local villagers in the Zagros Mountains had reached the site and found 11 badly burned bodies in the wreckage. He said DNA tests would be needed to identify the dead.</s>(TEHRAN) — A Turkish private jet flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul with at least 11 people on board crashed Sunday night in a mountainous region of Iran during a heavy rain, authorities said. There was no immediate report of casualties.

Iranian state television quoted Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman of the country’s emergency management organization, as saying the plane hit a mountain in Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames.

Shahr-e Kord is some 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. The state-run IRNA news agency and state television said rescuers were trying to reach the scene, high up in the Zagros Mountains.

Villagers near the crash say they saw flames coming from the plane’s engine before the crash, according to a report by Iran’s state-run judiciary news agency Mizan.

The semi-official Fars news agency said the plane took off from Sharjah International Airport on its way to Istanbul. A private company that handles public relations for the Sharjah airfield, the home of low-cost airline Air Arabia, declined to immediately comment. Sharjah is a neighboring emirate of Dubai.

Turkey’s private Dogan News Agency identified the plane as a Bombardier CL604, tail number TC-TRB. Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the plane belongs to a company named Basaran Holding, which The Associated Press could not immediately reach.

Mina Basaran, a 28-year-old woman who is part of Basaran Holding’s board of managers and is in line to run the business, posted photographs on Instagram of what appeared to be her bachelorette party in Dubai. Among those photographs was an image of the crashed plane posted three days ago.

The last videos posted to her account showed her and friends enjoying a concert by the British pop star Rita Ora at a popular Dubai nightclub.

Sunday’s crash comes after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short-distance regional flying, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people on board in February.</s>A Turkish private jet flying a group of young women from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul crashed Sunday in heavy rain in a mountainous region of Iran, killing all 11 people on board, authorities said.

Days earlier, the doomed aircraft carried a bachelorette party bound for Dubai, although it was not clear who was on the plane when it went down.

Iranian state television quoted a spokesman for the country’s emergency management organization as saying the plane hit a mountain near Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames. Shahr-e Kord is some 230 miles south of the capital, Tehran.

The spokesman, Mojtaba Khaledi, later told a website associated with state TV that local villagers had reached the site in the Zagros Mountains and found only badly burned bodies and no survivors. He said DNA tests would be needed to identify the dead.

Villagers said they saw flames coming from the plane’s engine before the crash, according to a report by Iran’s state-run judiciary news agency Mizan.

The plane took off late Sunday afternoon and climbed to a cruising altitude of just over 35,000 feet. A little over an hour later, it rapidly gained altitude and then dropped drastically within minutes, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking website.

The flight took off from Sharjah International Airport, according to the General Civil Aviation Authority in the UAE. A private company that handles public relations for the Sharjah airfield, the home of low-cost airline Air Arabia, declined to comment. Sharjah is a neighboring emirate of Dubai.

Turkey’s private Dogan News Agency identified the plane as a Bombardier CL604, tail number TC-TRB. Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the aircraft belonged to a company named Basaran Holding, which The Associated Press could not immediately reach.

Basaran Investment Holding is active in the food, finance, energy, construction, tourism and travel industries, according to the company’s website.

Mina Basaran, the 28-year-old daughter of Basaran’s chairman who is part of the company’s board of managers and is in line to run the business, recently posted photographs on Instagram of what appeared to be her bachelorette party in Dubai.

Among those photographs was an image of the plane posted three days ago. In it, Basaran posed on the tarmac carrying flowers, wearing a denim jacket reading “Mrs. Bride” and the hashtag “#bettertogether.” In another picture, she holds heart-shaped balloons inside the plane.

A day ago, Basaran posted a picture with seven smiling friends from a Dubai resort. The last videos posted to her account showed her enjoying a concert by the British pop star Rita Ora at a popular Dubai nightclub. There was no further activity on her account after that.

Iranian emergency management officials said all the passengers were young women, according to state television IRNA.

Sunday’s crash comes less than a month after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short regional flights, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people aboard.</s>A Turkish private jet flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul with at least 11 people on board crashed Sunday night in a mountainous region of Iran during a heavy rain, authorities said. There was no immediate report of injuries.

Iranian state television quoted Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman of the country’s emergency management organization, as saying the plane hit a mountain in Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames.

Shahr-e Kord is some 370 kilometres (230 miles) south of the capital, Tehran. The state-run IRNA news agency and state television said rescuers were trying to reach the scene, high up in the Zagros Mountains.

Villagers near the crash say they saw flames coming from the plane’s engine before the crash, according to a report by Iran’s state-run judiciary news agency Mizan.

The semi-official Fars news agency said the plane took off from Sharjah International Airport on its way to Istanbul. A private company that handles public relations for the Sharjah airfield, the home of low-cost airline Air Arabia, declined to immediately comment.

Turkey’s private Dogan News Agency identified the plane as a Bombardier CL604, tail number TC-TRB. Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the plane belongs to a company named Basaran Holding, which The Associated Press could not immediately reach.

Sunday’s crash comes after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short-distance regional flying, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people on board in February.</s>A Turkish private jet flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul carrying a group of young women crashed Sunday night in a mountainous region of Iran during a heavy rain, authorities said. There was no immediate report of casualties among the 11 on board from the aircraft, which days earlier carried a bachelorette party bound for Dubai.

Iranian state television quoted Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesperson of the country's emergency management organization, as saying the plane hit a mountain in Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames.

Shahr-e Kord is some 370 kilometres south of the capital, Tehran. The state-run IRNA news agency and state television said rescuers were trying to reach the scene, high up in the Zagros Mountains.

Villagers near the crash say they saw flames coming from the plane's engine before the crash, according to a report by Iran's state-run judiciary news agency Mizan.

The plane took off around 4:41 p.m. local time Sunday and reached a cruising altitude of just over 10,500 metres, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking website. At around 6:01 p.m., something appears to have gone wrong with the flight as it rapidly gained altitude and then dropped drastically within minutes, data published by the website showed.

The semi-official Fars news agency said the plane took off from Sharjah International Airport on its way to Istanbul. A private company that handles public relations for the Sharjah airfield, the home of low-cost airline Air Arabia, declined to immediately comment. Sharjah is a neighbouring emirate of Dubai.

Turkey's private Dogan News Agency identified the plane as a Bombardier CL604, tail number TC-TRB. Turkey's Transport Ministry said the plane belongs to a company named Basaran Holding, which The Associated Press could not immediately reach.
• Iran finds wreckage of plane that crashed with 65 on board

Mina Basaran, a 28-year-old woman who is part of Basaran Holding's board of managers and is in line to run the business, posted photographs on Instagram of what appeared to be her bachelorette party in Dubai. Among those photographs was an image of the same plane posted three days ago.

The last videos posted to her account showed her and friends enjoying a concert by the British pop star Rita Ora at a popular Dubai nightclub. There was no further activity on her account after that.

It wasn't clear who was on the plane at the time of the crash, though Iranian emergency management officials described all the passengers as being young women, according to IRNA.

Sunday's crash comes after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short-distance regional flying, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people on board in February.</s>All 11 people on board a private Turkish plane that crashed in southwestern Iran died in the incident, Iranian state media reported Monday.

Turkish and Iranian officials said there were eight passengers and three crew aboard the plane, which crashed in the Zagros Mountains on Sunday evening during a flight from Sharjah to Istanbul.

Turkish media reports said the eight passengers were Mina Basaran, the daughter of a leading Turkish businessman, and seven of her friends who had spent the past days in the United Arab Emirates to celebrate her marriage.

The crew, including the two pilots, were also all female, the reports said.

There was no immediate indication as to the cause of the crash.

Iran's state news agency IRNA said rescuers at the site had found 10 bodies, which were to be taken by helicopter to the Shahr-e Kord airport, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of Tehran.

Rescue workers are continuing to search for the eleventh body, it said, adding that all the corpses so far found had been identified except for two, which were heavily burnt.

The aircraft's black boxes were found and will be handed to Turkish authorities, IRNA said, citing Jafar Madani, deputy governor of the province where the plane crashed.

The crash comes less than a month after a twin-engine passenger plane of Iran's Aseman Airlines crashed in the Zagros range, killing all 66 people on board.

The plane had disappeared off the radar after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight as a snowstorm battered the mountains.</s>TEHRAN, Iran — Investigators on Monday found the “black box” from a Turkish private jet that crashed in an Iranian mountain range on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul, killing all 11 people on board, including a Turkish bride-to-be and her bachelorette party.

Authorities recovered all the dead from the crash site in the Zagros Mountains outside the city of Shahr-e Kord, some miles south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, according to a report by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Officials have so far identified eight bodies, including that of Mina Basaran, the 28-year-old daughter of the chairman of Turkey’s Basaran Investment Holding, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday.

Heavy rains and wind in the mountain range since the crash Sunday made it impossible for helicopters to land in the area, though officials hoped to bring the bodies down from the mountain later in the day, IRNA said.

Families of the victims arrived Monday in Shahr-e Kord, accompanied by Turkish diplomats, IRNA reported.

The flight took off Sunday from Sharjah International Airport in the UAE, home to the low-cost carrier Air Arabia. A little over an hour into the flight, the aircraft rapidly gained altitude and then dropped drastically within minutes, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking website.

It remains unclear what caused the crash, though a witness told state television the Bombardier CL604 was on fire before it hit the mountain.

Finding the aircraft’s “black box” will help investigators trying to piece together what happened. That equipment, typically painted in a bright color to allow searchers to easily find it, records cockpit conversations and radio transmissions, as well as other data from a flight.

Sharjah civil aviation authorities said in a statement late Sunday that the plane’s eight passengers were six Turks and two Spaniards. Three others were the flight crew.

“The plane did not apply for maintenance procedures while on the ground of the airport,” their statement said.

Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper and other media reports said the plane’s three crew members — two pilots and one flight attendant — were all women as well.

Basaran and her friends had celebrated her bachelorette party in nearby Dubai. Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the aircraft belonged to Basaran Investment Holding, which the Associated Press has not been able to reach since the crash.

Basaran recently posted photographs on the photo-sharing app Instagram of what appeared to be her bachelorette party, which included eight women. Iranian authorities previously said the flight’s passengers were all young women.

Among those photographs was an image of the plane posted three days ago. In it, Basaran posed on the tarmac carrying flowers, wearing a denim jacket reading “Mrs. Bride” and the hashtag “#bettertogether.” In another picture, she holds heart-shaped balloons inside the plane.

On Saturday, Basaran posted a picture with seven smiling friends from a Dubai resort. The last videos posted to her account showed her enjoying a concert by the British pop star Rita Ora at a popular Dubai nightclub.

Other victims included 28-year-old architect Zeynep Coskun, who also recently was engaged and would have married in the summer, Turkey’s private Dogan news agency said.

Melike Kuvvet, the plane’s co-pilot, was a former Turkish air force captain who was dismissed from the military but was hoping to be reinstated in May, Dogan reported.

Sunday’s crash came less than a month after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop used for short regional flights, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people onboard.</s>DUBAI (Reuters) - A private Turkish plane travelling from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul with 11 people on board crashed in southwestern Iran on Sunday, a spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said.

“We can confirm that a Turkish private jet ... while passing through our airspace disappeared from the radar and crashed near Shahr-e Kord,” Reza Jafarzadeh told state television.

Iran’s ISNA news agency quoted Jafarzadeh as saying 11 people were believed to be on board, but there was no word on their fate.

An emergency services spokesman was quoted by ISNA as saying the plane was on fire.

Emergency crews were attempting to reach the crash site but the terrain was mountainous, making their approach difficult, the spokesman said.</s>A private Turkish plane flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul crashed on Sunday in the south of Iran with 11 people on board, Iranian state television reported.

Other Iranian media said the plane went down in a remote mountain in the snow-capped Zagros range during bad weather.

The plane had flown from the emirate of Sharjah and went down near the city of Shahr-e Kord, about 400 kilometres south of Tehran, state television reported.

The aircraft was a Canadian-made Bombardier, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.

It had eight passengers and three crew members on board, said Reza Jafarzadeh, head of the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Tasnim quoted an ICAO official as saying: “The plane is on fire. After the pilot asked to lower altitude, it disappeared from the radar.” Turkey’s NTV channel, quoting the Turkish transport ministry, said the plane belonged to the Istanbul-based Basaran Holding Company which is active in the energy, construction and tourism sectors.

Iranian media reported that rescuers had been dispatched by land to the crash site, which is located in a relatively isolated area Helen’s Mountain — a protected area in the Zagros range.

Some reports said the plane went down during heavy rain.

The head of Iran’s Red Crescent, Morteza Salimi, told state television that two helicopters would fly to the area on Monday morning “to search for the plane’s debris and bodies” — indicating there could be no survivors.

The Zagros range was the scene of another aviation tragedy in February, when an ATR-72 twin engine passenger plane of Iran’s Aseman Airlines crashed there killing all 66 people on board.

The plane had disappeared from radar after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight as a snowstorm battered the mountains.

Rescue teams had to battle bad weather for days before they were able to recover the black boxes of that aircraft and had to interrupt their operation several times because of bad weather.

They are still working on bringing the remains of those killed down the valley from the crash site which lies at a height of about 4,000 metres.
A private plane from Sharjah to Istanbul crashes in the Zagros Mountains in Iran, killing Turkish socialite Mina Başaran along with, according to Iranian state media, ten other people on board.