10 killed as Iran rescue chopper crashes in fog

TEHRAN TEN people were killed on Wednesday when a rescue helicopter ferrying wounded people from a vehicle accident to hospital hit power lines and crashed to the ground in northeastern Iran, media reported.

Those who died included four members of the helicopter crew, five people who had been wounded in the minibus crash and a medic from the emergency services.

“Eight people were killed on the spot and two people wounded in the crash died later in hospital,” local emergency medical services official Reza Vafaeenejad told the ISNA news agency.

The report quoted an emergency services official in Mashhad as saying the rescue chopper was taking people wounded in a vehicle accident to hospital in the city when it hit high voltage power lines in thick fog.

The “helicopter belonged to the air force and was on lease to the emergency services,” the official said.

Iran is subject to harsh sanctions from Western countries over its disputed nuclear programme, with spare parts for its military aircraft fleet as well as for civilian planes affected.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, an Iranian lawmaker says the country’s parliament has postponed the implementation of a second round of subsidy cuts until 2013 over fears of stoking already rampant inflation.

The head of the parliamentary budgetary and planning committee Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghaddam told the semiofficial Mehr news agency the second phase of the three-part plan would likely cause a 15- percent jump in the inflation rate, which is officially running at almost 25 percent.

Iran began cutting subsidies on energy and food in 2010.

The second phase, which targeted gasoline subsidies, was to take effect in March 2012.

Parliament’s decision on Tuesday officially pushed back the second round of cuts to March 2013.

Iran has been under increasing economic sanctions by the West that suspects Iran is pursuing nuclear weapon, a charge Iran denies.

Incidentally, Iran said on Wednesday that it successfully tested a new air defense system modeled after the US Hawk system during a drill in the country’s east. A senior Iranian official called the maneuvers a “slap” to America and Israel. State TV broadcast footage on Tuesday said to be from the drill, which began on Saturday and which has been billed as “massive.” The footage shows a Hawk missile being launched and hitting a mock aircraft. Earlier reports said the new surfaceto- air system is named “Mersad,” or Ambush. It is capable of locking a flying object at a distance of 80 kilometers and can hit from 45 kilometers away, state TV said.

According to the reports, the Iranian military is expected to test anti-aircraft batteries and other air defense systems as part of the drill.

“This military exercise is a message and a strong slap to those countries that threaten,” said air defense chief Gen Farzad Esmaili, referring to the US and Israel. “And a message of peace and friendship to friendly countries.”