Related: 11 confirmed dead in Iranian military aircraft crash

     TEHRAN, Jan. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- A military aircraft crashed in northwestern Iran on Monday morning, killing all 13 aboard.

   

A frame grab taken from Iranian Al-Alam TV shows the wreckage of the Falcon military plane that crashed near Orumiyeh in northwestern Iran near the Turkish border.  (Xinhua/AFP photo)

    The small Falcon jet belonging to Iran's elite militia force Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) went down in Aidinlou village near Orumiyeh, the capital of West Azarbaijan province,the official IRNA news agency reported.

    Police has cordoned off the site of the crash, the report added. 
   

Head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Yahya Rahim Safavi (L), Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar (2nd L), senior Revolutionary Guard commander Ali Akbar Ahmadian (2nd R) and head of the corps' ground forces Ahmad Kazemi salute Iranian soldiers during a military parade to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, in Tehran September 22, 2005. (Xinhua/Reuters file)

    Massoud Jazayeri, a spokesman of the IRGC, confirmed that IRGC commanders were on board, but he didn't reveal their identities.

    The local news agency Fars reported that among the victims were Ahmad Kazemi, commander of the ground forces of the IRGC and seven other senior officers.

    He added that the IRGC had begun investigating the cause of the crash and would issue an official announcement soon.

    It was heavily snowing when the crash took place, but there has been no official link of the accident to the terrible weather condition.

    Iran has witnessed high rate of aircrush due to the lack of spare parts and maintenance of aircraft, especially U.S.-made planes, as a result of U.S. economic sanctions.

    An Iranian C-130 transport aircraft crashed on Dec. 6 last year in a residential area in Tehran shortly after take-off, killing 108 aboard and on the ground. Enditem