Much of Iran’s air fleet is in dire need of spare parts that Tehran has been unable to buy due to US and other western sanctions.
“Iran’s air fleet is a metaphor for the regime as a whole,” said Ali Ansari, founder of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews. “It’s old, should not be able to keep flying, and yet does — until it doesn’t.”
Tehran has yet to give an official explanation for the crash.
The likely culprit is an aging fleet, battered by decades of wear and tear. Blocked for years by western sanctions on Iranian institutions and export controls on aerospace goods, Iran has been thwarted in efforts to renew its fleet or access spare parts and maintenance contracts.
Much of Iran’s air force is even older than its civilian fleet and combines decades-old US aircraft, many of them bought in the 1970s, with Soviet-made planes and a few airworthy French Mirage F1s.
