Iranian teams struggle to recover bodies from plane

Weather finally cleared on Tuesday morning, allowing a helicopter crew to spot a piece of the wreckage.

Iranian rescue teams struggled to recover bodies on Tuesday from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in hazardous terrain near a mountain peak two days earlier with 66 people on board.
"Deep and dangerous crevices in the area of the crash have made it impossible for helicopters to land," Ghafoor Rastinrooz, director of the regional medical centre, told official news agency Iran.
"The bodies must be transferred by hand to the foot of the mountain which will be time-consuming," he said. Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared from radar as it flew over the Zagros mountain range on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight.
After two days of heavy snow and fog, the weather finally cleared on Tuesday morning, allowing a helicopter crew to spot a piece of the wreckage with the company's logo. A pilot told state broadcaster IRIB he had seen "scattered bodies around the plane" and that it was located on one of the Dena mountains at a height of around 4,000 metres (13,000 feet).
Footage from the helicopter showed a glimpse of the wreckage in deep snow on a sheer mountain face, while officials warned that bad weather was due to return in a few hours. Around 100 mountaineers have been making their way up the mountain since Monday.
"Helicopters are dropping off the rescue and relief teams in the nearest spot possible, as accessing the site of the crash is very difficult," Ali Abedzadeh, head of the Civil Aviation Organisation, told state TV.

• MENA