At least 16 people were killed Friday when a passenger plane caught fire while landing in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, said the state news agency.
Local officials said at least 21 other passengers were injured, while the remaining passengers managed to get out of the aircraft unharmed.
Officials earlier said 17 people were killed. There was no explanation for the change in death toll.
The Russian-made Ilyushin-62 plane from the privately owned Aria Airlines was carrying 153 passengers and flew from the capital of Tehran to Mashhad, roughly 1,000 kilometres away.
Video on state television showed the wreckage of the plane, which appeared to have the front end destroyed.
The manager of the Tehran-based airline was killed in the crash, the state news agency reported.
Earlier this month, 168 people were killed when a passenger plane crashed about 120 kilometres northwest of Tehran. The Caspian Airlines flight was heading from Tehran to the Armenian capital of Yerevan.
There were 153 passengers and 15 crew members on board the Russian-built Tupolev jet.
Iranian airlines, including state-run ones, are chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered, experts say.
U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from updating its 30-year-old American aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes as well. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the Soviet Union’s fall.
The sanctions also bar sales of European jets with a certain number of U.S. parts, limiting Iran’s ability to buy from Europe.
