TEHRAN, Dec. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 110 people were confirmed dead in a plane crash in the Iranian capital Tehran on Tuesday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    IRNA quoted rescue and military sources as saying that 110 bodies have been found so far and transferred to the hospital.

    The report also said 16 of the wounded have been sent to hospital for medical treatment.

    Meanwhile, some local media put the death toll at 119, but the figure has not been confirmed by official sources.

    The disaster occurred when a C-130 military aircraft, bound for the Gulf seaport city of Bandar Abbas, plunged into a 10-story building at 2:10 p.m. (1040 GMT) in Tehran after a failed attempt for an emergency landing.

    Local official sources said all 94 people aboard the transport plane, 40 of them journalists of state television who were on the way to covering military exercises, were killed in the crash.

    Technical problems were reported shortly after the plane took off from Tehran's Mehrabad international airport, located in a densely-populated residential area in the west of Tehran, and forced the pilots to make the emergency landing.

    The state television also said the building, housing some 250 people, was still on fire and that fire-fighters were trying to rescue people trapped inside.

    It added that more than 90 of the wounded had been sent to hospital and some were in critical condition.

    TV pictures showed that the apartment building had been seriously damaged with the storeys under the fourth floor wrapped with flames and that strong black smoke billowed from the building.

    Wreckages of the destroyed plane damaged more than 10 cars parking around and some even flew into a nearby wood, causing scattered fires.

    Meanwhile, Tehran Radio reported that at least 25 residents were killed on the ground because of burning, suffocation or inhaling smoke and 15 others injured, adding that emergency workers had sealed off the area.

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has expressed immediate condolences and sympathies to the bereaved families.

    Iran, a country under economic sanctions of the United States, has witnessed a high rate of plane crash due to the lack of spare parts and maintenance of aircraft, especially of the US-made planes.

    All of Iran's C-130 aircraft and other US-made planes were imported during the pro-US Shah's reign, which came to an end with the country's Islamic Revolution in 1979.

    On June 25, 2003, a military C-130 crashed 30 km south to Tehran, killing 7. Enditem