Questions haunt downing of Ukrainian plane
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — When Navaz Ebrahim learned that a Ukrainian plane had fallen from the sky near Iran’s capital, she didn’t realize her older sister was on the flight. They had just spoken on the phone.
As news spread of the jetliner that burst into flames and plunged to the ground Jan. 8, 2020, killing all 176 on board, Ebrahim called her mother in Tehran, desperate to hear that her 34-year-old sister and brother-in-law had taken any other plane home to London. Then her mother checked the flight number.
A year after Iran’s military mistakenly downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 with two surface-to-air missiles, the answers that have emerged from the disaster only seem to lead to more questions.
Officials in Canada, which was home to many of the passengers on board, and other affected countries have raised concerns about the lack of transparency and accountability in Iran’s investigation of its own military, while grieving families allege harassment by Iranian authorities.
“Without knowing what really happened to them, we’re stuck in that same horrible night,” said Ebrahim, who lives in Dallas. “We haven’t received anything close to the truth.”
The shootdown ignited an outburst of unrest across Iran, deepened public mistrust in the government and further damaged Iran’s relations with
the West.
After three days of denial in the face of mounting evidence, Iran admitted its own aerial
defense forces downed the plane by mistake. Just hours before the crash, Iran had fired ballistic missiles at American bases
in Iraq in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
On alert and fearful of American reprisals even as commercial air traffic was allowed to continue, lower-level officers mistook the Boeing 737-800 for a U.S. cruise missile, authorities later reported. After receiving no response from higher command, a missile operator opened fire in violation of protocol.
The civilian airliner, bound for the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, exploded. The bodies of the passengers — including 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians — were burned beyond recognition and strewn across a field near the village of Shahedshahr just outside of Tehran.
In the immediate aftermath, Iran denied international accusations of the shootdown and tried to clear the crash site. Bulldozers rolled into the farmland, sweeping up the plane’s debris, according to accounts in a Canadian government report released last month. Local villagers picked over the wreckage, pocketing valuables.
Further undermining its credibility, Iran refused to hand over the plane’s black boxes — flight data and cockpit voice recorders — for over six months.
When the cover-up fell apart, security forces cracked down on protesters who thronged the streets, outraged at the tragedy and their government’s deception. Families were not allowed to hold candlelit vigils and their requests for private burials were denied.