4 crew members killed in Iranian plane crash

An Iranian small government plane on a test flight crashed off southern Iran on Monday night, killing all four crew members on board, officials said on early Tuesday. The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Falcon 20 aircraft, which is capable of carrying between 10 and 16 people, went down in the water about 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) off the eastern shore of Kish Island, an Iranian resort island. A total of four people were on board. The aircraft belonged to the Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) and was carrying out a test flight when it crashed near the island, said CAO spokesman Hamid Habibi. The state-run news agency (IRNA) reported that four bodies had been recovered by early Tuesday morning. Habibi said a committee had been formed and sent to the scene to investigate the circumstances surrounding the accident. “Any comment on the cause of the aircraft accident will come from the committee and is subject to the completion of the investigation,” the spokesman added.