A plane carrying at least 29 people, including Iran's Transport Minister Rahman Dadman and deputy ministers and members of parliament, crashed on Wednesday, killing all on board, a civil aviation official told Reuters.
The Russian-made Yak-40 aircraft went missing in a mountainous area close to the northern town of Sari early on Thursday on a flight to the town of Gorgan, near the border with Turkmenistan.
Along with the minister, two deputy transport ministers and seven MPs from the Gorgan region were flying to the town to inaugurate a new airport, the official IRNA news agency said.
The pilot had contacted air traffic controllers reporting bad weather and said he might return to Tehran or make an emergency landing in Sari.
Dadman was appointed to the cabinet in January in a cabinet reshuffle.
He is an influential reformist politician close to President Khatami, according to reports.
The MPs are thought to all come from the northern Golestan province, said the BBC Online.
Sari, in neighboring Mazandaran province, is the home of the Mottaqi stadium, where a stand collapsed earlier this month, injuring hundreds of football fans and killing at least two - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
