Azernews.Az

Iran has banned the flight of Tu-154 and Ilyushin planes due to their high gasoline consumption, Iran Fuel Management Center official, Amir Jafarpour said, Tasnim portal reported.

He rejected rumors about banning these kind of planes because of their poor security conditions.

"Tu-154 is known as an insecure aircraft, while this plane is very safe," Jafarpour said.

Iran's Civil Aviation Organization banned flight of Tu-154 and Ilyushin planes in 2011, after several crashes.

A Tu-154 plane belonging to the Iranian airline crashed on Feb.12, 2002, killing all 119 passengers.

Another Tu-154 plane, which was owned by Caspian Airlines, crashed at the time of the emergency landing on July 15, 2009. 168 people, including 153 passengers, were on board. Tu-154 crashed 16 minutes after takeoff.

On Jan.24, 2010, Тu-154 plane, which had first flown from the southern city of Abadan could not land in Mashhad airport due to bad weather and it was forced to land in Isfahan.

The plane's tail caught fire at the time of landing. 42 of 150 passengers on board got injuries.

Before the Islamic revolution, Iran's commercial air fleet consisted of Boeing manufactured in the U.S. and French Airbus, and Iran Air was the second air carrier in the world for the security level.

Following a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the U.S. in November 1979, Washington imposed an embargo on the sale of new U.S. aircrafts and spare parts to Iran.

The embargo imposed on Iran has led to a significant decay of the Iranian commercial aircraft fleet. The planes are not maintained properly due to lack of spare parts. Iran is forced to buy used American planes from other countries, as well as Russia planes.