176 Dead, UIA, Boeing, Tehran: Key Facts About the Crash of Ukrainian Plane in Iran
Everything you need to know about the UIA plane crash in Iran.
Today, January 8, a Ukrainian UIA plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran airport, Iran. It was flying to Boryspil airport in Kyiv. According to FlightRadar 24, the plane took off from the airport at 4:38 Kyiv time (6:38 local time, Tehran), reached an altitude of 2.5 km and disappeared from radar six minutes into the flight. The British newspaper The Independent reported that the flight had been delayed.
There were 176 people on board, including passengers and crew. Among them were 11 Ukrainians: 2 passengers and 9 crew members. The other passengers were citizens of Iran (82), Canada (63), Sweden (10), Afghanistan (4), Germany (3) and the United Kingdom (3). No one survived.
The Ukrainian embassy in Iran initially put forward the version of an engine fire and wrote that neither a missile nor a terrorist attack was to blame for the tragedy. But it later deleted the information and said that the causes are being determined by a commission, and until its decision, any statements about the causes are not official.
Flights over Iran were banned by airlines of Ukraine, the United States, Russia, France and other countries.
Chronicle
This is the fifth air disaster in Iran over the past 11 years. Previous ones occurred in 2009 (168 dead), 2011 (77 dead), 2018 (65 dead) and 2019 (15 dead). It is also the first major air disaster in the past 22 years of Ukrainian aviation history.
A UIA representative said at a press conference: «The aircraft was airworthy. We guarantee the airworthiness of the plane». He also said that the plane passed inspection on January 6, there were no comments in Tehran, and the pilots were experienced, with 7 to 12 thousand flight hours, so UIA ruled out pilot error, given that the plane reached the required altitude.
UIA also redesigned its website in black and white mourning colors.
Zelensky instructed the prosecutor general to open a criminal case over the plane crash. The president also said that a plane with Ukrainian experts from the State Emergency Service, the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the SBU, the National Security and Defense Council, the Ministry of Defense, the State Aviation Service, the National Bureau for Investigation of Aviation Events and Incidents with Civil Aircraft, and UIA representatives will fly to Iran; they will be involved in the investigation, identification of bodies and registration of the dead.
Iranian media, citing local aviation officials, reported that the pilot did not declare an emergency situation.
Iran refused to hand over the Boeing black box to anyone and decided to decode the data itself. "The black boxes will be decoded in Iran's authoritative state laboratory. Thus, Iranian laws establish the rules for where and how they must be decoded," said Hassan Rezaifar, head of the emergency response department of the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran.
The crash occurred a few days before David Calhoun took office as the new CEO of Boeing, replacing Dennis Muilenburg, who resigned in December after a catastrophic year for the company.
Ukrainian victims
- Oleksii Naumkin, aircraft commander
- Volodymyr Haponenko, aircraft commander
- Serhii Khomenko, first officer
- Kateryna Statnyk, flight attendant
- Ihor Matkov, flight attendant
- Mariia Mykytiuk, flight attendant
- Denys Lykhno, flight attendant
- Valeriia Ovcharuk, flight attendant
- Yulia Sologub, flight attendant
- Olha Kobiuk, passenger
- Alena Malakhova, passenger
Among the victims were 26 children and teenagers under 18. The youngest passenger was born in 2018, and the oldest in 1945. According to NSDC Secretary Oleksii Danilov, two people did not board the plane, and their names are known.
Condolences were expressed by various representatives of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia and other countries, as well as representatives of UIA, Boeing, the Pentagon...
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