Over the skies of Iran on Tuesday, 127 souls aboard a Sepehran Airlines Boeing 737 were reminded how thin the margin is between routine travel and catastrophe. A tire blowout and possible engine damage during takeoff from Mashhad sent the cabin apart from within — panels and compartment doors raining down on passengers who prayed and screamed as the pilot turned the aircraft around. They landed safely, all of them, which is itself a kind of miracle — though the deeper story belongs not to this single flight but to the slow erosion of an aviation system cut off, by sanctions, from the parts and
Iranian Boeing 737 makes emergency landing after mid-flight structural damage
127 passengers and crew experienced terrifying cabin structural failure with falling debris, though no injuries were reported.