Qualla: Caspian Airlines Flight 7908

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Omid hendupur, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sixteen minutes. That was how long Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 was in the air on the morning of 15 July 2009. The Tupolev Tu-154M had lifted off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport bound for Yerevan, Armenia, carrying 153 passengers and 15 crew members. Somewhere over the Qazvin Plain, the left engine tore itself apart. An eyewitness standing 300 meters from the impact point would later describe what happened next: "The plane just fell out of the sky."

Image: Omid hendupur | CC BY-SA 3.0

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908: A Plane with Many Lives

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fereshteh Sa, CC BY-SA 4.0. The aircraft that became EP-CPG had already lived several lives before that July morning. Built in 1987, it entered service as YA-TAR with Bakhtar Afghan Airlines, flying in a country that was then in the midst of the Soviet-Afghan War. In 1988, it was transferred to Ariana Afgha...

Image: Fereshteh Sa | CC BY-SA 4.0

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908: The Chain of Failures

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GTVM92, CC BY-SA 4.0. The crash investigation pieced together a cascade of mechanical failures that left the crew with no chance. It began with fatigue failure in a rotor disc inside the left engine -- engine number one. The disc did not simply crack; it disintegrated, sending fragments tearing throug...

Image: GTVM92 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908: Impact on the Qazvin Plain

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. The aircraft struck a field near the village of Jannatabad outside Qazvin at 11:33 local time. The impact carved a crater up to 10 meters deep. Three hours later, fires still burned across an area of 200 square meters. All 168 people aboard perished -- families traveling between ...

Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908: What the Wreckage Revealed

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Philippe Chavin (Simorg), CC BY-SA 3.0. The black boxes were recovered, though they had been damaged in the crash and fire. The investigation, conducted with assistance from Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee, confirmed the mechanical chain of events: rotor disc fatigue, engine disintegration, hydraulic failure, fu...

Image: Philippe Chavin (Simorg) | CC BY-SA 3.0