A Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane with 176 passengers and crew crashed near Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 8 January 2020. The airliner was en route to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
According to Qatari-based international broadcaster Al Jazeera, all those on board were killed. The Boeing 737-800 jet crashed shortly after takeoff in Parand, an area southwest of Iran’s capital Tehran.
The plane was originally supposed to take off at 5:15 am from Tehran to Kyiv but was delayed by almost an hour. Iran’s ISNA news agency posted a video to Twitter showing a faint light flickering in the air before a huge fireball appeared.
نخستین ویدئو از سقوط هواپیمای اوکراینی اطراف شهریار pic.twitter.com/M3bZiLLryQ
— خبرگزاری ایسنا (@isna_farsi) January 8, 2020
Photos have emerged online of the wreckage, scattered all over the ground. A spokesman of the Iranian Aviation Organisation, Reza Jafarzadeh, said to local media: ‘An investigation team from the national aviation department was dispatched to the location after the news was announced. We will give more reports in upcoming bulletins.’
Sending my condolences to the tragic Ukrainian Plane crash in Iran with 176 people on board in which ALL 167 passengers and 9 crew members have died!
Please can you forward my deepest sympathy to the families and friends. They are in my thoughts during this terrible time pic.twitter.com/JtVP5Ih5tb— Bernard Cheruiyot (@BenCheruiyotKE) January 8, 2020
What a sad day…what a scary start to 2020. 🙏🙏🙏#planecrash #Iranattack#iran #ukrainianplane #Tehran #TrumpsWar #BREAKING https://t.co/jZ8V4q4zAw
— Dennis Farkas (@Cheeks1128) January 8, 2020
Also read: Travel warnings issued for Turkey and Dubai
Image: Twitter
