1994 Iranian Air Force C - 130 shootdown The 1994 Iranian Air Force C - 130 shootdown occurred on March 17 , 1994 , when an Iranian Air Force C - 130E military transport aircraft , carrying Iranian embassy personnel from Moscow to Tehran , was shot down by Armenian military forces near the city of Stepanakert in Nagorno - Karabakh , an area which had been under armed conflict since 1988 . The 32 people ( 19 passengers and 13 crew ) on board were killed in the crash . Shootdown . The C - 130 Hercules departed from Moscow , taking relatives of Iranian embassy staff home for Novruz celebrations . The Iranian Embassy in Moscow said the aircraft was carrying 19 passengers , including nine children , and a crew of 13 . The crew reported mechanical trouble before veering into and entering the Azerbaijani airspace over the region of Nagorno - Karabakh , where it crashed , killing everyone on board . Armenia ' s first deputy foreign minister , Zhirair Liparityan , told a news conference that the plane should have flown over Russia , Georgia and Armenia before reaching Iran . However it veered about 65 miles east of this corridor as it left Georgia and did not enter Armenian airspace as scheduled at 10 : 08 p . m . Instead , it flew into the war zone around Nagorno - Karabakh . The remains of Iranians killed in the crash were transported to Armenia and flown from the Yerevan ' s Zvartnots International Airport to Tehran . The ceremony was attended by Armenian Vice - president Gagik Arutyunyan and Vice prime - minister Vigen Chitechyan . Iran dispatched a special Air Force commission to investigate the causes of the tragedy . The chief of the commission Abdat Aminian dismissed the version offered by Armenian Vice President Gagik Arutyunyan who suggested that the C - 130 lost control and plunged to the ground because of some malfunctions of the plane ' s flight systems . An official of Iran ' s Foreign Ministry stated that for " some unknown reasons the plane exploded in mid - air , after it veered off course . " Aminian declared that the plane was shot down by two missiles , launched by the Armenian forces . Aminiyan said that the Armenian side did not assume direct responsibility for the accident , however , it admitted that its troops took the Iranian plane for an Azerbaijani craft , and that the Armenian troops did not try to get in touch with the plane in order to identify it . The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced the results of the investigation in a statement , which placed the blame for the shootdown with the Armenian forces . The statement said that " Iran reserves the right to take legal action and receive compensations for the victims of the crash , and calls on the Armenian government to identify and punish those guilty of downing the aircraft " . The Azerbaijani National Security Ministry supplied the Iranian side with a radio dispatch that was intercepted by Azeri intelligence on the day of the catastrophe . One of the phrases in the intercepted dispatch was " We have just downed an Azeri military plane " . Azerbaijani intelligence claimed that a self - targeting " Osa " missile system was used to down the C - 130 . Some Russian military experts suggested that the C - 130 intentionally changed its flight course for reconnaissance purposes . However the Iranian Foreign Ministry rejected these allegations . Aftermath . In a meeting in Tehran with Armenia ' s vice president , Gagik Arutyunyan , Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani demanded that those responsible for the shooting be punished . Before departing from Tehran , Arutyunyan admitted that the Iranian plane was shot down “ by mistake ” , without specifying , who committed the mistake . In the opinion of Human Rights Watch , " under the rules of war , the Karabakh Armenians would be duty bound to ascertain the nature of the aircraft before firing . If they did not use every available means to identify the aircraft and still fired , this would constitute a serious violation of humanitarian law " .