TEHERAN, Iran — Authorities on Monday raised the death toll in a plane crash in northwest Iran to as many as 77 as investigators searched for clues to what caused the aircraft to attempt a disastrous emergency landing.
The pilots of the Boeing-727, operated by Iran's national airline, reported a technical failure to the control tower before trying to make the emergency landing in a snowstorm Sunday night, state-run TV reported. The IranAir aircraft broke into several pieces, but Mahmoud Mozaffar, head of the rescue department of Iran's Red Crescent Society, said there was no explosion or fire.
