Black boxes 'damaged' in Iran plane crash

TEHRAN, July 16 (UPI) -- Aviation officials were at the site of an Iranian passenger plane crash, in which all 168 people on board died, working to determine what caused the crash.

Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 slammed to the ground in northern Iran Wednesday about 15 minutes after departing Tehran for Yerevan, Albania.

Flight data recorders from the Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M were recovered from the crash site, but Iranian media reported the "black boxes" sustained damage, CNN said.

"If efforts to retrieve data from the boxes fail, they will be sent back to the country that has produced them so that they could be repaired in order to find the reason behind the crash," the government-supported Press TV reported Transport Ministry official Ahmad Majidi as saying.

Investigators from the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee were expected to join the crash scene investigation working alongside Iranian aviation authorities, the agency said.