With Armenia's civil aviation organization confirming that the Caspian Airlines plane that crashed in Iran on Wednesday had passed all pre-flight safety inspections, the cause of the disaster remains a mystery.
Flight 7908 went down near the Iranian city of Qazvin in the village of Jannat-abad at 11:33 am local time on Wednesday, killing all 168 people onboard. The plane, a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M, was flying from Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia.
"The Tupolev Tu-154M had passed aircraft safety inspections in Russia earlier in June. It was then certified fit to fly until the end of 2010," Nelli Cherchinian, a spokesman for Armenia's civil aviation organization, told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
Armenia and Iran, meanwhile, have agreed to coordinate efforts to investigate the cause of the crash, which has remained a mystery despite the recovery of the aircraft's data recorders.
Investigators have so far found two of the three black boxes in the plane and the search for the missing third continues. One of the data recorders is believed to be damaged beyond repair and will thus be sent to its Russian manufacturer for analysis.
Meanwhile, Russian experts have decided to visit Iran to help with the investigations.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who declared a national day of mourning for the crash victims, extended condolences to his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a phone conversation on Thursday.
Ahmadinejad, for his part, called for cooperation in search efforts.
In another development, Ahmad Majidi -- the head of the Crisis Working Group of Iran's Road and Transportation Ministry -- said Thursday that hopes of identifying the remains of the victims of the crash remain bleak.
Mohammad Ali Ahani, the head of the Qazvin disaster management center, added that the remains of the victims had been transferred to a Tehran mortuary, pending possible identification and release by the coroner.
More than 140 relatives of the Armenian victims are reportedly flying to Tehran in a chartered flight on Thursday afternoon.
The plane crash was Iran's worst air disaster since February 2003, when a Russian-made Ilyushin 76 crashed into the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing all 302 people onboard.
US-led sanctions prevent Iran from buying new planes and updating its existing fleet. The sanctions also make it hard for Iran to get its hands on European planes or spare parts.
Ten members of Iran's junior judo squad, a Canadian woman, her son and an Australian brother and sister were among the 168 victims of the tragic incident.
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