Black Boxes From Iran's Crashed Plane Recovered

Iranian workers search at the site where a Russian-made Iranian passenger plane crashed just outside...

Iranian workers search at the site where a Russian-made Iranian passenger plane crashed just outside the village of Jannatabad, near the city of Qazvin around 75 miles west of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, July, 15, 2009. All on board were killed in Iran's worst air disaster in six years.(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

(Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)

The crash of the Tupolev jet leased by Caspian Airlines was the latest in a string of air disasters in recent years that have highlighted Iran's difficulties in maintaining its aging fleet of planes. Iranian airlines, including state-run ones, are chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered, experts say.

U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from updating its 30-year-old American aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the Soviet Union's fall.

Iranian civil aviation agency chief Ali Ilkhani said the Tu-154M that crashed was built in 1987, was bought by Iran in 1998 and had an overhaul certificate valid until 2010, state TV said.

Most of the passengers were Iranians, including 42 from Iran's large ethnic Armenian community, as well as 11 members of Iran's national youth judo team.

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Five Armenian citizens were among the dead, Armenia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, along with two Georgians, including a staffer from the Caucasus nation's embassy in Yerevan.

Armenia on Thursday announced a one-day national state of mourning to mark the death of its citizens in the crash. Flags were flying at half-mast on government buildings and Armenian embassies abroad. Local radio and TV have canceled entertainment programs in a show of respect.

Iran's national airline sent a Boeing 747 to Yerevan Thursday to help take victims' relatives to Tehran. Caspian Airlines' representative in Armenia, Arlen Davudian, said victims' relatives would be provided hotel rooms and transportation to the crash site.

Victims' relatives, he added, would be paid compensation of at least euro32,000 ($45,216).

At the site of the crash on Wednesday, flaming wreckage, body parts and personal items were strewn over a 200-yard (meter) area. Firefighters put out blazes from the crash, but smoke smoldered from the pit for hours after as emergency workers searched for the data recorders and other clues to the cause.