TEHRAN (Armenpress)—The Yerevan office of the Iranian carrier Caspian Airlines Monday denied that the ill-fated flight from Tehran to Yerevan that crashed on July 15 had weapons and ammunition on board.
The Italian “Corriere della sera” newspaper reported that weapons and ammunition were on board the flight and were intended for ground transport from Armenia to Hezbollah factions in Syria and Lebanon.
The newspaper reported that the crash resulted from the explosion of the ammunition and was part of a covert operation by Iran’s government to supply weapons to Hezbollah.
The head of flight security at Armenia’s Civilian Aviation Administration, Serob Karapetyan, ruled out those reports.
“We do not have such information. There are no grounds for it, he said. “The dissemination of such information is an unfriendly step with regard to Armenia.”
Karapetyan added that according to the Interstate Aviation Committee, the crash was caused by an engine fire.
Caspian Airlines officials, meanwhile, insisted that the decoding of the downed plane’s “black boxes” was still under way.
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