An aging Iranian passenger airliner carrying 144 people crash-landed on a runway and skidded onto a major highway next to an airport Monday.
Authorities said two people suffered injuries in the hard landing in Mahshahr, a city in Iran’s oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province.
Passengers, apparently in shock, calmly exited the aircraft with their carry-on baggage out, video from Iran’s Civil Aviation Network News showed.
A flight attendant shouted at passengers to calmly walk away as another crew member joined her on the wing.
“We crashed. We crashed but we are unhurt,” a male passenger said in Farsi in the video. “My hand is shaking.”
Provincial airport director Mohammad Reza Rezanian commented, all the passengers had been safely taken off the plane.
The plane carried 136 passengers and eight crew members, authorities said.
It seems that tragedy was narrowly avoided.
However, as images from the scene showed the plane had ground to a halt not far from a populated area.
The plane also missed traffic on a major highway linking Mahshahr to Imam Khomeini Port.
The accident is under investigation, officials said.
Under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Iran could purchase new aircraft.
It had lined up tens of billions of dollars in deals with Airbus and Boeing Co.
However, the manufacturers backed away under increasing pressure by President Donald Trump, who ultimately withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and increased tensions with Tehran.
