A military transport plane loaded with Iranian journalists and trying to make an emergency landing slammed into a 10-storey apartment building yesterday, ripping open the top of the structure and igniting a huge fire.

At least 128 people were killed.

The ageing Iranian military transport plane suffered engine failure and smashed into a densely populated residential area amid thick smog.

The C-130 was bought from the US before the Islamic Revolution nearly three decades ago.

All 94 people on the plane were killed, most of them Iranian journalists heading to cover military maneuvers in the south. Thirty-four residents of the apartment building also died, and 90 were injured, Teheran state radio said.

Flames leaped out of windows, from the roof and several other floors of the building as panicked residents fled the Towhid complex, a series of high-rise apartment buildings for air force personnel in the Azadi suburb of Teheran.

"The plane disintegrated and all the bodies are burned. A young girl jumped from the window because of the flames. Most of the victims on the ground are women and children who were at home," said Lieutenant Nasser Sedigh-Nia, who witnessed the crash.

"The fuel tanks were full, which is why the explosion was so big," the air force officer told AFP. "Our C-130s are in a bad state because of the US sanctions: we can't get spare parts."

Wreckage rained down, hitting a nearby gas station, police said. Cars parked below were smashed by falling debris.

At the foot of the blackened building, what appeared to be a pile of wreckage was in flames.

Firefighters managed to put out the fire in the building, which was damaged and charred but still standing. Police cordoned the building and debris field, preventing journalists and a crowd of as many as 10,000 people from getting close to the site.

Many in the crowd were screaming, afraid their relatives had been killed. Several hours after the crash, the building still was smouldering.

"It was like an earthquake," said Reza Sadeqi, a 25-year-old merchant, who saw the plane hit the building. "The force of the crash threw me about three meters inside my shop."

"I felt the heat of the fire caused by the crash. It was like being in hell," he said.

The C-130 aircraft had just taken off from the nearby Mehrabad airport en route to Bandar Abbas, a port city in southern Iran. It experienced a technical problem and was returning the Mehrabad for an emergency landing when it hit the building, state-run television said.

The plane, which belonged to the army air force, carried 84 passengers and 10 crew members, Iranian television reported. All aboard were killed, the mayor of Teheran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told The Associated Press.

Witness Iraj Mordi told AP he saw the plane as it appeared to circle the Mehrabad Airport before seeing its tail suddenly burst into flames, leaving a smoke trail in the sky as it plummeted.

Mordi said he thought the plane was going to crash into a gasoline station and fled, but turned and saw it slam into what he thought was the building's eighth floor.

In April, an Iranian military Boeing 707 with 157 people aboard skidded off a runway at Teheran airport and caught fire, killing three people.

Last year, a Ukrainian-built aircraft carrying aerospace scientists crashed in central Iran, killing all 44 people aboard.

In 2003, a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 302 people.

(China Daily December 7, 2005)