A Ukranian Boeing 737 carrying 176 people crashed on Wednesday shortly after take-off from the main airport of Tehran, killing everyone on board. The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport and was on its way towards the Ukrainian capital Kyiv when the fire struck one of its engines. The pilot of the airport reportedly lost control of the aircraft sending it crashing into the ground.
The Ukranian Boeing carried 167 passengers and nine crew members from different nations. The victims of the crash included 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainian’s 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, and three Britons, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko.
The Boeing 737-800 of the Ukrainian International Airlines took off from the airport at 6.12 am on Wednesday, after being delayed for almost an hour, and then stopped sending data almost immediately afterward. According to reports, the aircraft never above 8000 ft and went down about 10 minutes later. It is being reported that the pilot steered the plane towards a soccer field to avoid falling into the residential area, which would have led to terrible devastation.
A statement was initially posted on the website of the Ukranian embassy in Iran, ruling out an act of terror and said that an engine malfunction caused the crash. But later, the statement was redacted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk confirmed the casualty toll. “Our task is to establish the cause of the crash of the Boeing and provide all necessary help to the families of the victims,” Dmytro Razumkov, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, said in a statement on Facebook.
The black box containing vital information of the Ukranian Boeing crashed was retrieved, but Iran said that it would not hand it over to Boeing. It is not yet clear whether the Iranian authorities were disputing the legality of handing it over to an American company or they are seeking to inspect the box themselves first.
Boeing 737-800 belongs to the same family of 737 Max 8 aircraft, which has been grounded since two fatal crashes occurred within six months in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018. In March 2016, a FlyDubai 737-800 from Dubai crashed while trying to land at Rostov-on-Don airport in Russia, killing 62 people on board. Another 737-800 flight from Dubai, operated by Air India Express, crashed in May 2010 while trying to land in Mangalore, India, killing more than 150.
According to the Ukrainian International Airlines, the plane was less than four years old and had been checked two days before the accident
The aftermath of the assassination of the Iranian General Qassem Soleiman, the situation in Iran, has worsened to a severe level. On the 7th of January, more than 50 people lost their lives, and above 200 were injured while attending the funeral procession of the slain general. Following the incident Iran fired dozens of missiles at US-led forces in Iraq, the crash is not yet linked to these incidents, but, on social media and a Jordanian news agency have claimed that the plane was hit by one of Irans’ missiles. Still, there is no proof of these claims whatsoever.
