Popular Turkish Socialite, Mina Basaran and 7 Friends Dies in Plane Crash [Photos]

Popular Turkish Socialite, Mina Basaran and 7 Friends Dies in Plane Crash [Photos]

A fatal plane crash which happened in Iran, reportedly claimed the lives of a Turkish socialite, Mina Basaran, who was celebrating her bachelorette party with seven friends. It was gathered that the flight carrying the group from the UAE to Istanbul on Sunday, began to fail after the plane’s engine caught fire and crashed into the mountains of Iran.

According to Reuters, the plane was owned by the private holding company of Turkish businessman, Huseyin Basaran, and carried eight passengers and three crew who all died in the crash.

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization spokesman, Reza Jafarizadeh, said the private jet crashed near Shahr-e Kord city, some 230 miles south of the capital Tehran. Local villagers who reached the crash site in the Zagros Mountains, reportedly found only badly burned bodies and no survivors.

The plane was identified as a Bombardier CL604, tail number TC-TRB by Turkey’s Dogan News Agency. That tail number was the same that heiress Mina Basaran, 28, had posted on Instagram three days ago on Thursday.

In the image she stands on the tarmac wearing a jacket that says ‘#bettertogether Mrs Bride’. In another picture, she holds heart-shaped balloons inside the plane. Her wedding was set for next month.

On Sunday evening, just a few hours after news of the crash went viral, there were more than 7,000 comments on the photo of the Turkish socialite.

“The wreck of the jet and the bodies are found. They will be carried down from the mountain when sun comes up. My condolences to those who lost their loved ones,” the head of the Turkish Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik, said on Twitter, citing his Iranian sister organisation.

Basaran, a former deputy chairman of Trabzonspor football club, owns businesses that span yachts to energy. His construction projects include a series of luxury apartment blocks on Istanbul’s Asian side called “Mina Towers”, named after his daughter.