A wealthy Turkish socialite and her friends were among the 11 people killed on Sunday when a private plane bringing them home from a Dubai bachelorette party crashed into an Iranian mountainside.
The plane was owned by the private holding company of Turkish businessman Huseyin Basaran, and carried eight passengers and three crew, an official for Turkey’s transport ministry said. Those on board included Basaran’s daughter Mina and seven of her friends, all flying back from a party ahead of her planned wedding next month.
Basaran, a former deputy chairman of Trabzonspor football club, owns businesses that span yachts to energy. One of his companies is the top shareholder in Bahrain Middle East Bank BSC, a small investment bank. His construction projects include a series of luxury apartment blocks on Istanbul’s Asian side called “Mina Towers”, named after his daughter.
Mina Basaran, the 28-year-old bride-to-be, recently posted photographs on Instagram of what appeared to be her bachelorette party in Dubai.
Among those photographs was an image of the plane posted three days ago. In it, Basaran posed on the tarmac carrying flowers, wearing a denim jacket reading “Mrs. Bride” and the hashtag “#bettertogether.” In another picture, she holds heart-shaped balloons inside the plane.
A day ago, Basaran posted a picture with seven smiling friends from a Dubai resort.
The last videos posted to her account showed her enjoying a concert by the British pop star Rita Ora at a popular Dubai nightclub.
