A Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 crashes in Iran

Ukraine International Airlines is among largest Boeing 737-800 operators on the post-Soviet territory (UIA)

A Boeing 737-800 operated by flag carrier Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) crashed in Iran this morning killing 176 passengers and crew. The aircraft was outbound from Teheran airport (IATA: IKA) on a scheduled service to Kyiv’s Boryspil airport (KBP) and crashed shortly after take-off. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the tragic event in his Facebook account.

The crashed aircraft, with tail number UR-PSR, joined UIA’s fleet in July 2016 as the first factory-new aircraft delivered to UIA in four years. Its last scheduled maintenance took place on 6 January this year, the airline says in a statement. The aircraft was owned and leased to the carrier by the US Varangian Leasing LLC and was configured with 185 seats.

168 passengers had checked in for the doomed flight according to the Ukrainian embassy in Iran, and the aircraft was manned by nine crew members. None of the people on board survived the crash, which is the first fatal event in Ukraine International’s 27-year history.

Ukraine’s embassy in Iran has already attributed the crash to engine problems and has ruled out any act of terrorism as a possible cause.

The start of 2020 has been marked by an escalation of the conflict between the USA and Iran after Iranian general Qassim Suleimani was killed in a US air strike at Baghdad Airport on January 3. In retaliation, on January 7-8, Iran attacked US military forces in Iraq. At the same time, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a NOTAM outlining flight restrictions that prohibit US civil aviation operators from operating in Iraqi and Iranian airspace, or across the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.