Ukraine crash: All 170 passengers onboard Boeing 737 plane dead, says report

All 170 passengers onboard a Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 airplane that crashed on Wednesday early morning are killed, Iran's state television said.

The airliner crashed soon after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport due to technical difficulties. The Ukrainian plane burst into flames after crashing near the airport.

"The fire is so heavy that we cannot (do) any rescue... we have 22 ambulances, four bus ambulances and a helicopter at the site," Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency services, told state television as cited by the Reuters.

Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told state television that the number of passengers onboard the flight was 170.

According to air tracking service FlightRadar24, the plane that crashed was Flight PS 752 and was flying to Kiev. The website added that the airport's flight data showed a Ukrainian 737-800 flown by Ukraine International Airlines took off on Wednesday morning but stopped transmitting data to the air traffic controller (ATC) immediately afterwards.

IRNA said according to preliminary information "the plane was bound for Kiev ... and had 180 passengers and crew."

Boeing said the company was aware of media reports of a plane crash in Iran and was gathering more information.

The Ukraine plane crash has come hours after Iran launched over a dozen ballistic missiles targeting at least two bases where US military and coalition forces' are stationed in Iraq, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. These attacks came after the killing of the commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, General Qasem Soleimani, in a US drone strike, which was ordered by President Donald Trump, on Friday.

Boeing is already beleaguered by a spate of crashes that happened in October 2018 and last March. The disasters involving US manufacturer's 737 Max jet have claimed nearly 350 lives so far leading to the grounding of the said planes globally for 10 months.

Meanwhile, ANI also reported that the Indian government has told all Indian airlines to avoid the airspace of Iran, Iraq and the Gulf due to the ongoing tension in the region.

Also read: Ukrainian Boeing 737 plane with 180 passengers on board crashes in Iran