TEHRAN – Iran has on Saturday announced that its military “unintentionally” shot down a Ukrainian flight PS 752, killing all 176 people on board, according to state TV.
Iran in its statement termed the downing of the plane as “human error”.
A Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS 752, went down on the outskirts of Tehran during takeoff a few hours after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at US forces in Iraq.
Iran had denied for several days that a missile downed the aircraft. But then the US and Canada, citing intelligence, said they believed Iran shot it down.
The plane, en route to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries, including 82 Iranians, at least 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians.
Earlier, the US officials said that a Ukraine airliner was most likely brought down accidentally by Iranian air defenses.
One US official said US satellites had detected the launch of two missiles shortly before the plane crashed, followed by evidence of an explosion. Two officials had said Washington believed the downing of the plane was accidental.
Flight 752
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Tehran to Kiev operated by Ukraine International Airlines, or UIA. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 operating the route was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, which attributed it to human error.[3][4][5] President of Iran Hassan Rouhani later described the accident as an “unforgivable mistake”. All 176 passengers and crew were killed, making it the deadliest aviation disaster in Iran since the 2003 Iran Ilyushin Il-76 crash. The incident was the first fatal aviation incident for Ukraine International Airlines since the start of its operations in 1992.[6]
Initially, Iranian authorities denied that they had shot down the plane, stating that there was a technical error with the plane. Ukrainian authorities, after initially deferring to Iran’s explanation, said a shootdown of the flight was one of their main working theories. American, Canadian and British officials stated that they believed the aircraft had been shot down by a Russian-made Tor M1 surface-to-air missile launched by Iran. After three days of denying responsibility, the Revolutionary Guard Corps stated on 11 January that they had shot down the aircraft after erroneously identifying it as a US cruise missile.
The incident came during a period of increased tensions between the United States and Iran, five days after a drone strike that killed Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani and hours after retaliatory ballistic missile attacks by Iran on US forces in Iraq.[7] It was preceded by an order from the US Federal Aviation Administration that all American civilian aircraft avoid Iranian airspace and was followed by similar orders by several other nations and airlines.[8][9]
