A Sepehran Airlines Boeing 737-500 veered off the runway after landing at Mashhad International Airport in Iran on 25 August 2026, leaving the aircraft disabled but causing no reported injuries among the 127 passengers and crew on board.
Flight IS4310 was arriving from Tehran Mehrabad Airport when the aircraft departed the paved surface after what Iran's Civil Aviation Organization described as a normal landing. The organization said no technical problem had been reported before touchdown.
According to the official account carried by Iranian news agency ISNA, the aircraft veered to the left, entered an unpaved area while still travelling at high speed, and eventually came to a stop. Passengers and crew evacuated safely. Iranian authorities sent an investigation team to Mashhad to determine why the aircraft left the runway.
Images taken after the accident show the 737 resting nose-down, with its nose landing gear no longer supporting the aircraft. Airport notices temporarily closed Runway 13R and Taxiway Q because of the disabled airframe - a meaningful disruption at one of Iran's busiest airports, and one that will persist until the aircraft can be lifted and moved.
Weather is not an obvious factor. Observations around the time of the accident reported good visibility, no significant cloud and light winds, which removes the usual short list of contributing conditions - crosswind, standing water, poor braking action - from the immediate picture. That tends to push an investigation toward aircraft systems, braking and steering, or handling after touchdown, though nothing has been established at this stage.
The aircraft involved is registered EP-FSF, a Boeing 737-529 built in May 1992, which makes it a little over 34 years old. Its career reads like a tour of the second-hand narrowbody market: it began with Belgian flag carrier Sabena as OO-SYJ in 1992, later flew with AeroSvit and Ukraine International Airlines in Ukraine, then moved to Indonesia where it operated for Riau Airlines and Kalstar Aviation. The jet joined Sepehran in 2016.
That history is not incidental. Iranian carriers have operated under international sanctions for decades, which has largely cut them off from new-build Western aircraft and from the normal flow of manufacturer support and spare parts. The result is a domestic fleet that leans heavily on ageing second-hand airframes acquired through intermediaries - 737 Classics, MD-80s, Airbus A300s and A320s of similar vintage. Maintaining aircraft of this age to Western standards is possible, but it is materially harder without unrestricted access to parts and manufacturer data.
The 737-500 itself is the shortest member of the 737 Classic family, a single-aisle twinjet powered by CFM56 engines and typically seating around 110 to 130 passengers. Production ended in 1999, and the type has almost entirely disappeared from Western scheduled fleets, surviving mainly in regions where cheap capacity matters more than fuel efficiency.
For now the essential facts are the reassuring ones: a normal approach, an excursion at speed, an evacuation with no injuries, and an investigation under way. The aircraft, on the evidence of the post-accident images, is unlikely to fly again.
Sources: AeroTime. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Marco Bianchi.
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