Days after German millionaire Rainer Schaller went missing, private jet wreckage found in Costa Rica

Gen. Reza Yousefi, commander of the air base in Tabriz, said the crashed jet had been used for training and suffered a technical problem on its final flight.

``Pilots could not reach the runway,'' he said, according to the report.

In an effort to avoid crashing into the residential area, the pilots guided the jet to the stadium, he said. The report quoted Yousefi as saying: ``The pilots sacrificed themselves, they could (have) used the ejection system, but they refused to do it.''

The pilots headed for the stadium ``to keep people safe,'' Yousefi said in the report.

A state TV reporter at the crash scene said the plane went down on a soccer pitch and because the width of the pitch was not long enough, it left the pitch and hit a school wall.

No one was inside. Schools were closed amid Iran's sixth wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Iran's air force has an assortment of U.S.-made military aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It also has Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi planes. Decades of Western sanctions have made it hard to maintain the aging fleet.