A Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 aircraft carrying 176 passengers and crew on board crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport early today.
According to Iran’s state television reports, the airliner crashed near Parand, a suburb located southwest of the capital city when a fire reportedly struck one of its engines. The departure of the flight to Kyiv was delayed by an hour.
Qassem Biniaz, spokesperson for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry, said that the pilot of the aircraft lost control of the plane after the fire, sending it crashing to the ground.
The incident had no survivors. Ukraine has released the following information on the victims' nationalities:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has extended his condolences to the victims’ families. In their most recent statement, planemaker Boeing claimed to be aware of media reports on the incident, but that it was waiting to gather more information.
Latest reports state that the Chief of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, Ali Abedzadeh, announced that Tehran would not be giving the black box retrieved from the airliner to Boeing for analysis. They are yet to decide which country to send the box to.
The tragedy occurred just a few hours after Iran fired ballistic missiles at two US military bases in Iraq. In his speech today, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described the strike as a “slap on the face” for the US, but made no comment on the crash at the gathering.
Image Source: The New York Times