One of the engines of a Mahan Air flight that had just taken off from Mehrabad Airport fell off the plane last Thursday.
News reports said the engine landed in an open field and no one was injured.
The plane was a Boeing 747, a four-engine aircraft. The engine that fell off was the #3 engine, the inboard engine on the right wing. The pilot radioed that the engine hit the side of the fuselage when it came loose, according to Faramarz Sarvi, deputy head of Mahan Air, a private airline. The pilot turned around immediately and landed back at Mehrabad. No passengers were injured.
The Mahan Air plane, with 426 passengers and crew on board, 30 less than full capacity, was headed for Bandar Abbas when the engine dropped off just two minutes after takeoff.
Iranian aircraft have been prone to accidents, which the regime regularly blames on the United States for forbidding the sale to Iran of spare parts. But the ban on such sales was lifted by the United States more than a year and a half ago in January 2014. Despite years of vocal complaints about not being able to buy spare parts, Iran has only bought a single spare part from Boeing in the 20 months since then.
But that didn’t stop Iranian state broadcasting from proclaiming after the engine loss last week, “Iranian airlines have been plagued by a series of crashes because of Western sanctions that block the country from buying parts and renovating its ageing fleet.”
An engine falling off, however, does not point to a spare part problem. Rather it points to a maintenance error when an engine that has been repaired is fixed back on a wing. Over the years, a large number of aircraft leaving Mehrabad Airport have had to return quickly after discovering problems just after takeoff, suggesting problems in the Mehrabad maintenance section.
Mahan Air’s Sarvi said the engine loss took place at 7:15 a.m. local time, and that all regular inspections and checks on the plane had been conducted prior to departure. He didn’t say whether the engine had been replaced just before Thursday’s flight.