The crash-landing of an Afghan airliner in eastern Iran in which six people were killed was caused by a fight between the crew and security guards, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Monday.
The agency and Tehran Radio, both monitored in Nicosia, made no mention of a hijacking, which earlier Iranian and Afghan reports had blamed for Sunday's crash in the des-ert southeast of Zabol, close to the Afghan border.IRNA said deputy Prime Minister Alireza Moayyeri, sent by Premier Hussein Musavi to Zabol Sunday to investigate the incident, had found that the fight aboard the twin-engined Antonov An-26 led to the crash.
He did not elaborate but said that investigators had determined "the full details," IRNA reported in a dispatch from Zabol, 700 miles southeast of Tehran.
The radio quoted the governor of Zabol district as saying that, according to accounts given by passengers, the plane had "headed for Iranian territory as a result of the clash on board." It did not elaborate.
The Ariana Afghan Airways plane was flying from Kabul to the provincial city of Zaranj in the southwest, across the border from Zabol, with 38 passengers and crew aboard.