A Ukrainian airplane carrying 176 passengers and crew crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran’s airport Wednesday morning, killing all on board and turning farmland on the outskirts of the capital into fields of flaming debris.
The Ukraine International Airlines flight, bound for the country’s capital of Kiev, plunged from the sky just minutes after departing Imam Khomeini International Airport, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. The crash came hours after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles on Iraqi bases housing American and coalition soldiers. Iranian officials said they suspect a mechanical issue brought down the Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Ukrainian officials initially agreed, but later backed away and declined to offer a cause while the investigation is ongoing.
“I heard a massive explosion and all the houses started to shake. There was fire everywhere,” Din Mohammad Qassemi, an Iranian who lives near the crash site, told the Associated Press. Qassemi said he had been watching news broadcasts about the Iranian missile attack in revenge for the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani when he heard the plane hit the ground outside his home.
“At first I thought (the Americans) have hit here with missiles and went in the basement as a shelter,” Qassemi added. “After a while, I went out and saw a plane has crashed over there. Body parts were lying around everywhere.”
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All 167 passengers and nine crew members from different nations on board the plane perished, both Iranian and Ukrainian officials said. The nationalities of those dead, according to Ukraine Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, were as follows: 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, and 11 Ukrainians — nine of which were crew members — 10 Swedes, four Afghan, three German and three British.
Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry, said one of the plane’s engines caught fire, causing the pilot to lose control of the aircraft. It also appeared the pilot couldn’t communicate with air-traffic controllers in Tehran in the last moments of the flight, added Hassan Razaeifar, the head of Iran’s air crash investigation committee.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office offered his “sincere condolences to family and loved ones of all passengers and crew members.” He also cut his visit to Oman short and was returning to Kiev after the incident.
“We’re preparing a group of specialists in order to help with the search operation and the investigation of the cause of the crash,” added Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk.
The plane had been delayed from taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport by almost an hour. It took off to the west, but never made it above 8,000 feet in the air, according to data from the flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.