Iran's aviation industry - Western Sanctions againt Civil Airlines

It's the 18th of October 2011. Iran Air Boeing 727 is in trouble. It's approaching the runway at Tehran's Mehrabad airport, but a technical problem has occurred.

The front wheels have failed to deploy. 113 people are on board, 80 percent of them Russian and the plane still has a lot of fuel in its tank. A bad landing could mean a raging inferno and the death of everyone on board.

But pilot Houshang Shahbaazi is in control. He manages to keep the nose of the plane up long enough to land gracefully, without the front wheel. A catastrophe has been avoided.

This is not an isolated incident. Every year Iranian pilots face a number of hair-raising episodes, and every now and then tragedy does strike. Iran's aviation industry is struggling under crippling UN sanctions that make it very difficult for Iran to buy new planes, or buy parts for the maintenance of its ageing aircraft fleet.

Because of this, in the last 25 years there've been 17 plane crashes, and 1500 deaths. The fact that Iran's economy has been controlled by the government for so many years is also an issue that has affected the aviation industry.

In this edition of the show we'll be taking a close look at Iran's aviation industry and problems.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Iran
• Air
• Tehran
• Mehrabad
• airport
• UN
• sanctions
• aircraft
• fleet
• aviation
• industry
• civilian
• machines

[Saffronwing1]

The only way to save Iranian civilian industry for now-- start buying Russian and Chinese aircraft. China has come up with CAC919 aircraft and Russia already has the Tu-204. These would be good narrow-body replacements. Boeing 747s have to be scrapped.

[ATITANIC1992]

It is not true that most airlines got avarage fleet ages of five years or lower. In fact almost noone has that. The fleet avarage age is typical 10-15 years for alle the major established airliners. For example American Airlines at 15 years. Scandinavian Airlines at 12.5 years. and even Norwegians "famous modern fleet" is at 6.4 years!

[mehradwatson]

Nice Video