Hen night horror: tycoon’s daughter Mina Basaran and friends among 11 killed in private plane crash in Iran
Basaran, due to marry next month, was on board the small jet with seven friends, returning from her hen party in Dubai
Investigators on Monday found the “black box” from a Turkish private jet that crashed in an Iranian mountain range on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul, killing all 11 people on board, including a socialite bride-to-be and seven friends celebrating her hen night.
Authorities recovered all the dead from the crash site in the Zagros Mountains outside the city of Shahr-e Kord, some 370km south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, according to a report by the state-run IRNA news agency.
Officials have so far identified eight bodies, including that of Mina Basaran, the 28-year-old daughter of billionaire Huseyin Basaran, chairman of Turkey’s Basaran Investment Holding, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday.
Families of the victims arrived on Monday in Shahr-e Kord, accompanied by Turkish diplomats, IRNA reported.
It remains unclear what caused the crash, though a witness told state television the Bombardier CL604 was on fire before it hit the mountain.
Finding the aircraft’s “black box” will help investigators trying to piece together what happened. That equipment, typically painted in a bright colour to allow searchers to easily find it, records cockpit conversations and radio transmissions, as well as other data from a flight.
Sharjah civil aviation authorities said in a statement that the plane’s eight passengers were six Turks and two Spaniards. Three others were the flight crew.
“The plane did not apply for maintenance procedures while on the ground of the airport,” the statement said.
Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper and other media reports said the plane’s three crew members – two pilots and one flight attendant – were all women as well.
Basaran and her friends had celebrated her hen night in Dubai. Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the aircraft belonged to Basaran Investment Holding.
Basaran recently posted photographs on the photo-sharing app Instagram of what appeared to be her hen night, which included eight women. Iranian authorities previously said the flight’s passengers were all young women.
Among those photographs was an image of the plane posted three days ago.
In it, Basaran posed on the tarmac carrying flowers, wearing a denim jacket saying “Mrs Bride” and the tag #bettertogether. In another picture, she holds some heart-shaped balloons inside the plane.
On Saturday, Basaran posted a picture with seven smiling friends from a Dubai resort. The last videos posted to her account showed her enjoying a concert by the British pop star Rita Ora at a popular Dubai nightclub.
Other victims included 28-year-old architect Zeynep Coskun, who also recently was engaged and would have married in the summer, Turkey’s private Dogan news agency said.
Melike Kuvvet, the plane’s co-pilot, was a former Turkish air force captain who was dismissed from the military but was hoping to be re-instated in May, Dogan reported.
Sunday’s crash came less than a month after an Iranian ATR-72, a twin-engined turboprop used for short regional flights, crashed in southern Iran, killing all 65 people on board.
