All of the Tu-154 planes should be fully decommissioned within a month, Iran's Civil Aviation Organization Head Reza Nakhichevani was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.
A Tu-154 plane belonging to the Iranian airline crashed on Feb.12, 2002. All 119 passengers died as a result.
Another Tu-154 plane, which was owned by Caspian Arlines, flying en route from Tehran to Yerevan 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. The plane had 150 passengers on board, 42 of who were injured.
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. Iran is not allowed to buy aircraft, which has at least 10 percent of American capital.
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 aircraft-grade Tupolev from Russia.