Rescuers work in a huge concave left by the crashed Caspian Airlines plane, which fell into farmland near the city of Qazvin, northwest of Tehran on July 15, 2009. [Liang Youchang/Xinhua]

The head of a committee probing the crash told state media that the black boxes had been found at the site and would be sent to Tehran for inspection.

Majidi, Head of Committee Probing the Crash, said, "Thank God, we succeeded in finding two systems out of three. Although they are damaged we are hopeful that we can extract information from them. They will first be taken to Tehran."

The Tupolev jet took off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on Wednesday morning and was headed to the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

It crashed about 16 minutes after takeoff.

Most of the passengers were Iranians, many of them from Iran's large ethnic Armenian community as well as 11 members of Iran's national youth judo team.

Five Armenian citizens were among the dead, along with two Georgians, including a staffer from the Caucasus nation's embassy in Yerevan.