Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752/AUI752) was a scheduled international civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv, operated by Ukraine International Airlines. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 flying the route was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after takeoff,[4][5][6] killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard.
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In response to the Iranian missile attack, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), in a notice to airmen (NOTAM), banned all American civil aircraft from flying over Iran, Iraq, the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.[13][14] Although the FAA NOTAMs are not binding on non-U.S. airlines, many airlines take them into consideration when making safety decisions, especially after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.[15][16][17] Several airlines, including Austrian Airlines,[18] Singapore Airlines,[19] KLM,[20] Air France,[21] Air India,[21] SriLankan Airlines,[22] Qantas[15] and Vietnam Airlines[23] began to reroute their flights. Other airlines, such as Lufthansa, Emirates, Flydubai, and Turkish Airlines cancelled some flights to airports in Iran and Iraq, making further operational changes as necessary.[17][24][25][26]
The flight was operated by Ukraine International Airlines, flag carrier and largest airline of Ukraine, on a scheduled flight from Iranian capital Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport to Boryspil International Airport in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The aircraft was carrying 176 people, including nine crew members and fifteen children.[29]
According to the data, the last recorded altitude of the aircraft was 2,416 metres (7,925 ft) above mean sea level with a ground speed of 275 knots (509 km/h; 316 mph).[33] The airport is 1,007 metres (3,305 ft) above mean sea level and the terrain around Parand and the crash site lies approximately 125 metres (410 ft) higher at 1,134 metres (3,720 ft). The flight was climbing at just under 15 metres per second (3,000 ft/min) when the flight data recorder abruptly ended over the open ground near the northern end of Enqelab Eslami Boulevard in Parand.[31]
All 176 passengers and crew were killed.[43] It is the deadliest flight in terms of fatalities involving the Boeing 737 Next Generation fleet, and the second deadliest of the entire Boeing 737 family behind Lion Air Flight 610.[44]
There were 167 passengers and nine crew members on the flight.[51] According to Iranian officials, 146 passengers used Iranian passports to leave Iran, ten used Afghan passports, five used Canadian ones, four Swedish ones, and two used Ukrainian passports.[52] There is some disagreement with other sources over this accounting of nationalities, possibly due to some passengers being nationals of more than a single country.
According to Ukrainian foreign minister Vadym Prystaiko and a flight manifest released by UIA,[53] out of the 167 passengers, 82 were confirmed to be Iranian citizens, 63 were Canadian, three were British, four were Afghan, ten were Swedish, and three were German. Eleven Ukrainians were also on board, nine of them crew members.[43][47] The German Foreign Ministry denied any Germans were aboard;[54] the three people in question were Afghan nationals who lived in Germany as asylum seekers.[49] According to Iranian nationality law, the Iranian government considers dual citizens to be solely Iranian citizens.[55]
In addition to six flight attendants, the crew consisted of Captain Volodymyr Gaponenko (11,600 hours on Boeing 737 aircraft, including 5,500 hours as captain), instructor pilot Oleksiy Naumkin (12,000 hours on Boeing 737s, including 6,600 as captain), and first officer Serhiy Khomenko (7,600 hours on Boeing 737).[61]
The head of the commission for accidents in the CAOI said they received no emergency message from the aircraft before the crash.[65] It was reported that the aircraft's black boxes (the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR)) had been recovered, but the CAOI said it was not clear to which country the recorders would be sent so the data could be analyzed.[66] The association said it would not hand over the black boxes to Boeing or to U.S. authorities.[67] On 9 January, the black boxes were reported, by Iranian investigators, to have been damaged and that some parts of their memory may have been lost.[68] Mary Schiavo, a former U.S. Department of Transportation inspector general, said no automated distress messages had been sent from the aircraft or by its crew.[69]
On 9 January, media reports showed bulldozers being used to clear the crash site. Some aircraft investigation experts expressed concerns about disturbing and damaging the crash site before a thorough investigation could be conducted.[76] Iran denied bulldozing the evidence.[77] On 10 January, the Iranian government granted Ukrainian investigators permission to investigate the flight recorders and Ukrainian investigators visited the crash site,[78][79] with plans to download the recorders in Tehran.[80] On 14 January, the head of the TSB, Kathy Fox, said there were signs that Iran would allow the TSB to participate in the downloading and analysis of data from the airplane's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.[81] On 23 January, the TSB announced that they had been invited by Iran to help with the flight recorders.[82]
On 2 February, Ukrainian public TV aired a leaked recording of the information exchange between the Iranian pilot of an Aseman Airlines flight and an Iranian air traffic controller. The pilot stated in Persian that he saw "a series of flares like that of a missile" and later an explosion.[83][84] Following the leak, Zelensky said the new evidence proved Iran was well aware from the very first moments that the Ukraine passenger airplane was brought down by a missile.[83] The following day Iran ceased co-operation with Ukraine in its investigation into the disaster.[85] Iran resumed co-operation on 15 February.[86] In the final report about the crash, Iranian authorities gave a more complete transcript of the communication.[84]
On 20 January, Iran asked for assistance from France and the United States to recover the data from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.[87] On 5 February, Canada urged Iran to send the recorders to France.[88] Iran denied the request.[89]
On 11 June, Iran announced that the flight recorders would be sent directly to the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) in France.[95] Canadian officials urged Iran to complete this action "as soon as possible", citing the previous delays in handing over the recorders.[96] This statement was further reinforced 11 days later, when Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif commented on this intention during a phone call with Canadian foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne.[97]
On 8 January, Iran's Road and Transportation Ministry released a statement that the aircraft burst into flames after a fire started in one of its engines, causing the pilot to lose control and crash into the ground.[99][62] The airline opined that pilot error was impossible to be cited as the cause of the crash as the pilots had exclusively been trained for the Tehran flights for years, noting that Tehran Airport was "not a simple airport".[100]
On 11 January, the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran admitted they had shot down the airplane, having erroneously identified it as a hostile target.[113] According to an early IRGC statement, when the airplane seemed to head toward a "sensitive military centre" of the IRGC, controllers mistook it for a "hostile target" and shot it down.[114] Iran's Civil Aviation Organization disputed this timeline, arguing that the airplane was on the correct course all the time and there was no proven flight deviation.[115] The CAOI's viewpoint was also supported by a Radio Canada International article that used public ADS-B flight tracking data.[116][117] Iranian Brigadier general Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the IRGC Aerospace Defense said a missile operator in Bidganeh had acted independently, mistook the airplane for a U.S. cruise missile and shot it down. Hajizadeh also said the airplane was on-track and "made no mistake".[7][8]
On 9 January, the Instagram account Rich Kids of Tehran published a video captioned: "The actual footage from the moment the #Ukrainian flight was shot down by a Russian-made Tor-M1 missile just moments after takeoff from #Tehran's Airport".[123] The video was published at the same time the Iranian authorities were claiming technical problems for the crash.[124][125] Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran's Road and Transportation Ministry, said the pilot "lost control of the plane" after a fire broke out in one of its engines, denying the Ukrainian plane was hit by a missile.[126][127][128]
The air defense's launching two surface-to-air missiles at the flight PS752, UR-PSR aircraft, the detonation of the first missile warhead in proximity of the aircraft caused damage to the aircraft systems, and the intensification of damage led the aircraft to crash into the ground and explode instantly.
The mitigating measures and defense layers in risk management proved to be ineffective due to the occurrence of an unanticipated error in threat identifications, and ultimately failed to protect the flight safety against the threats caused by the alertness of defense forces.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) suspended flights to Tehran indefinitely shortly after the incident, with flights after the day of the crash no longer available.[43] The suspension also complied with a prohibition issued by State Aviation Administration of Ukraine for flights in Iran's airspace for all Ukrainian registered aircraft.[167] Since the crash, additional airlines, Air Astana and SCAT Airlines also re-routed flights that overflew Iran.[168][169] This followed a recommendation by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development, issued to Kazakhstani air companies after the crash, to avoid flying over Iran airspace and/or to cancel flights to Iran.[170] Air Canada rerouted its Toronto-Dubai flight to fly over Egypt and Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq.[171] 2ff7e9595c
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