The Iranian History 2004 AD

 

Brief History of Iran Iranian History Chronicle

Tehran Has A New International Airport

Feb, 1, 2004 AD

An Iran Air jetplane Taking Off from the runwayThe original opening of Tehran's new International airport was scheduled on Feb, 1, 2004. Located in Ahmadabad, 40 km south of Tehran. In 1966 ICAO submitted a report covering a study of specifications of a future airport in Tehran. The current site was agreed upon in 1971 and purchase of land began in 1975. The original project was given to a consortium of U.S. designers and Farmanfarmayan called TAMS-AFA to carry out the construction with an estimated budget of $53 billion. After the 1979 revolution, the new airport project shared the same destiny of other big projects such as the nuclear power plants. They were viewed as Shah's great ambitions and were suspended.
In Dec, 1982, the airport project was taken off the shelves, a budget was allocated for resumption of construction. TAMS submitted a complaint in international courts that resulted in withdrawal of 14.5 million dollars from Iranian accounts. Three project managers changed between 1983 and 1986 but very little was done until 1989. Those were the years of Iran-Iraq war also called The Sacred Defense. In 1990, Tehran International Airport was renamed as Imam Khomeini International Airport. Revisions of the master plan continued until 1995 when a contract was finalized and developments began. Big projects in Iran have always had behind the scene of struggles among power cartels which usually lead to higher costs and delays. The initial opening ceremony scheduled for Feb, 2004 had to be re-scheduled to May, 8. Just a few hours after the opening, the Revolutionary Guards closed the airport expressing discontent with security issues associated with a Turkish firm running the ground services. As was the case with Turkcell, TAV was forced to withdraw and the airport reopened on May, 13. Revolutionary Guards have been in charge of operating the airport ever since.
As of Oct, 28, 2007, all international flights except Hajj pilgrims of Saudi Arabia were directed to IKIA. Imam Khomeini International Airport already has been subject to many sidelines and speculations. Iran agreed to pay $5.7 million in compensation to Turkey's TAV. Canada and U.K. asked their citizens not to use IKIA in a statement on Apr, 29, 2005. In June, 2007, some of the airports customs personel were charged as members of a smuggling ring. Investigations led to closure of IKIA's customs office for a while. On Dec, 15, 2007, a KLM Airbus crashed with a Lufthansa plane which caused no casualties but was recorded as IKIA's first accident.
IKIA's first phase is now operating well, with a capacity of more than 5 million passengers and 120,000 tons of cargo per year. Wireless internet access is available at the airport for free, a luxury for Iranians who normally have to pay high prices for a slow dial-up connection. The airport is going to be connected to Tehran's Metro in the near future, until then taxis charge $15 on average to transport passengers to Tehran. (Updated: May, 4, 2009)





Iranian Plane Crashes In Emirates, Kills 43

Feb, 10, 2004 AD

Scenes from the Iranian Fokker-50 Kish Air Plane Crash in Sharjah, Emirates 2004 killing 38 people onboardAn Iranian plane crashed Tuesday as it approached Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates, killing 43 people aboard. The Kish Air Fokker-50, flying to Sharjah from the Iranian island of Kish in the Persian Gulf, crashed at 11:40 a.m. in an open area near the airport. Through the charred debris, only the tail and cockpit of the plane were recognizable. The Fokker-50 that crashed was 11 years old, according to the Dutch company which owns much of Fokker's assets. This one was newer than average passenger planes in Iran's ageing fleet. The plane was delivered to Kish Air in 2002.
Officials found a technical fault in the engine and said they had retrieved the plane's black box. Iran's aviation authority said in a statement that the plane had asked for an emergency landing as it was approaching Sharjah, then deviated to the left and crashed. Local police listed the victims by nationality as 19 Iranians including the six crew members, 12 Indians, four Egyptians, two Filipinos, two Algerians, a Syrian, a Chinese, a Nigerian and a Bangladeshi. The airline runs domestic and some short-haul international routes to and from Iran's Kish Island in the Persian Gulf. The UAE-Kish route is popular with immigrant workers in the UAE who need to renew visas.
In September, a Tu-154 belonging to Kish Air struck trees while making its approach at the Minsk airport. None of the 40 people aboard was hurt. Iranian aviation officials repeatedly asked the United States to lift sanctions on its airline industry so that they can provide spare parts for its civilian aircrafts at least.
Iran's avaition record has not been bright after the 1979 revolution partly because of lack of international standards also in terms of qualified personnel ; In 1995, an Iranian flight attendant hijacked a Kish Air Boeing 707 to Israel during a flight from Tehran. The plane was returned to Tehran with 174 passengers and the crew. (Updated: Mar, 7, 2009)





320 Killed In Train Blast

Feb, 18, 2004 AD

Feb, 2004 : Photographs from the scenes of an Iranian runaway train derailed near Neishabour and exploded killing more than 400 peopleA 51-car train rolled out of a switchyard and eventually reached a speed of more than 140 km/hr before it derailed, caught fire and exploded, killing at least 320 people and injuring hundreds more near Neishabour. It's not been clear whether negligence or brake failure caused the accident. An iron wedge used to secure the wheels of the lead car was broken, and it was unclear if brakes on individual cars were working or not. As rescuers choking on fumes managed to extinguish flames that burned for nearly 24 hours, at least 460 people were found wounded.
The train loaded with cargo including gasoline, fertilizers, sulfur and cotton somehow started rolling from a station before dawn on Wednesday and continued on a downward slope going about 140 km/hr and traveled for 50 kilometers before hitting a sharp turn at the next station where, all but three cars jumped the track and caught fire. The wrecked train burned for more than five hours before the hazardous mix of its contents exploded, killing firefighters, rescue workers, spectators and people in nearby villages shook by the force of the blast which was so powerful that windows were shattered as far as ten kilometers away. In an apparent indication of the explosion's force, Iranian seismologists recorded a 3.6-magnitude tremor in the area at the moment of the blast. The dead also included top city officials ; including Neishabour's governor, mayor and fire chief as well as the head of the energy department and the director-general of the provincial railways who had all gone to the site of the accident. It's possible that the rescue officials and railway workers were aware of the train's potentially volatile cargo, which was en route from central Asian countries to Iran's southern port of Bandar Abbas.
Only some of the train cars caught fire on derailing but firefighters did not realize that the blaze had caused some of the other wagons carrying fuel and other cargo to heat up and explode creating a 25 meter deep crater. A team of experts was dispatched to determine health hazards from the fumes. Many area residents complained of severe sore throats from the smoking wreck. Police sealed about one square km area around the blast scene near Neishabour, a historical city home to 170,000 people about 645 km east of Tehran on the route to Mashhad.
The clay-home village of Dehnow, which was closest to the blast at about 500 meters away, was flattened and many villagers were believed to have been killed. The rest appeared to have been evacuated. Casualties also were found in Hashemabad, Taghizadeh Abdolabad and other nearby villages. Many of the buildings that collapsed in a Dec. 26 earthquake in Bam, in southeast Iran, also were clay structures. That tragedy killed more than 41,000 people.
In New York, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan conveyed his condolences to the Iranian government and victims of the disaster. (Updated: Mar, 7, 2009)





Seventh Parliament Elections

Feb, 20, 2004 AD

An Iranian police officer controls traffic in front of the parliament at Baharestan squareThe seventh parliament elections took place in an atmosphere of mistrust caused by many reformist candidates' disqualification from entering the elections. Thus, the outcome of these elections were prejudiced when on February 23, the ministry of Interior affairs announced the results. Allegations of election rigging undermined the legitimacy of the regime opening to debate the concept of republic and the true function of public in it. Throughout the years, under great pressure from outside world specially the industrial countries, and after colorful revolutions in ex Soviet states such as Ukraine, Iranians had to adopt a suspicious instance towards terms like democracy. (Updated: Dec, 25, 2008)





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