TEHRAN, MAR 11 (DNA) – A private Turkish plane flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul crashed Sunday in the south of Iran with 11 people on board, Iranian state television reported.*

The plane had left from the emirate of Sharjah and went down near the city of Shahr-e Kord, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of Tehran, it reported.

The aircraft was a Canadian-made Bombardier.

It had eight passengers and three crew members on board, said Reza Jafarzadeh, head of the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation.

“The plane is on fire. After the pilot asked to lower altitude, it disappeared from the radar,” Tasnim quoted an ICAO official as saying.