Ukrainian passenger jet crashes near Tehran, killing all 176 aboard

A Ukrainian passenger airliner flying to Kyiv crashed
just three minutes after take-off from Tehran the morning of Jan. 8, killing
all 167 passengers and nine crew aboard. Video footage tweeted by the BBC
appeared to show the plane already burning in the sky before it crashed in a
massive explosion. It sparked speculation that the jet could have been shot
down accidentally by nervous Iranian air defense soldiers amid missile strikes
being exchanged by U.S. and Iranian military in recent days, the dailymail.co.uk
news site reported. The crash occurred just hours after the Iran attacked U.S.
military bases with 22 missiles in neighboring Iraq in retaliation for the Jan.
3 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Quds force.

The Ukrainian embassy in Tehran initially reported on
its website that the crash had been caused by engine failure rather than a
deliberate attack, the pravda.com.ua news site reported, yet the statement was
removed within hours. The airline reported that the plane, produced in 2016,
had undergone a technical inspection on Jan. 6. “With the data available today,
that the plane reached a height of 2,400 meters, a mistake among the crew is
minimal and we simply aren’t considering it. Considering its experience, it’s very
hard to say that something could have happened with the crew,” said Ihor
Sosnovskiy, an airline vice president, on Jan. 8, as reported by pravda.com.ua.

Meanwhile, Iranian officials said the pilot had lost
control of the Boeing jet after fire struck one of the plane’s engines, but
said the crew had not reported an emergency and did not say what caused the
fire, the dailymail.co.uk news site said.

Based on citizenship, the passengers consisted of 82 Iranians,
63 Canadians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, three Britons and two
Ukrainians, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko tweeted this morning.
All nine crew members were Ukrainian citizens and employees of Ukraine
International Airlines.

Zenon Zawada: The reason
for the crash can’t be conclusively determined with the information available
so far. If it’s concluded to have been related to the political tensions and
military strikes between the U.S. and Iran, the main geopolitical implication
for Ukraine is that it would reaffirm its status as a vulnerable instrument for
exploitation by bigger global powers (as was the case in the Trump impeachment
scandal). It’s possible the Ukrainian airline will be found to bear some
responsibility, which could also hurt the nation’s reputation. (Boeing’s
reputation could also suffer.) We express our condolences to those who lost
their loved ones.