F-5 fighter plane crash kills 3 in Iran’s northwest

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s state-run news agency reports that a fighter jet has crashed onto a soccer pitch in a city in northwest Iran. The IRNA report on Monday said that two pilots and a civilian were killed. The F-5 fighter crashed onto the field in a residential area of Tabriz, a city of 1.6 million residents. The report says authorities are investigating the incident. But it quoted a general as saying the plane had experienced a technical problem. Iran’s air force uses U.S.-made military aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It also has Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi planes. Decades of Western sanctions have made it hard to maintain the aging fleet.