On January 8, 2020, something happened in Iran that many believe was the most tragic incident in the last twenty years. A Ukrainian passenger plane took off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran and flew to Kiev. But it never reached its destination and the passengers could not return to the arms of their families and friends.
It was after six o’clock in the morning, Tehran time, when all 176 people on board died in a horrific explosion. Villagers found pieces of the plane and passengers’ personal belongings near the village of Khalajabad in the Central District of Shahriar County. Nobody knew the details of what had happened.
At that time, Iranians were involved in street protests. Hundreds of people had been killed a few weeks earlier while protesting the high price of fuel and officers had arrested thousands. Many families were already mourning, and no one expected this tragic event. Everyone wondered why this Ukrainian plane had crashed.
The Islamic Republic immediately announced that the incident was due to a technical defect. A few hours later, a short video was posted on social media showing the plane exploding and crashing due to a missile, showing that the technical defect was nothing more than a lie. But which missile had hit the plane? Did the US invade Iran and was this the beginning of the war?
A few days before the incident, one of Iran’s military commanders, Qassem Soleimani, had been killed on Iraqi land. Donald Trump officially announced that he had ordered the assassination of Soleimani. Qassem Soleimani was a commander who had many supporters and opponents. Millions reacted to his death, calling for revenge on the United States. Many also believed that Soleimani had suppressed thousands of opponents of the Islamic Republic and considered his death as a step to weaken the regime.
Whispers of war between Iran and the United States were already being heard. Social media was full of anti-war messages and messages of revenge. Many did not want a war but did not want to remain silent about Soleimani’s death either.
Finally, on January 8, 2020, Iran attacked the Al-Assad airbase in Iraq, where US forces were based. No American soldiers were killed in the attack. Hours later, a Ukrainian passenger plane on Flight 752 left Tehran for Kiev and was fired upon by two Revolutionary Guards missiles and exploded.
In the early days, the Islamic Republic of Iran denied launching a missile into a passenger plane until US intelligence officials said satellite images showed that the blast had been caused by a missile strike. After that, the Iranian military commanders and the government came under pressure from Ukraine and Canada, and were forced to admit their guilt, claiming that the IRGC had mistakenly targeted a passenger plane.
Half of the passengers on the plane were dual nationals, but native citizens of Canada and Ukraine were also among the passengers. About 25 of the passengers were children and teenagers, and none of the 176 passengers were politically active. They had immigrated to other countries to have a better life, study and work.
The people, especially the families of the victims, wanted to know the truth. The question was: why did this happen and why had they not stopped the flight of passenger planes when the military tried to attack US bases?
It was later hypothesized that the Islamic Republic did not suspend flights because ordinary people would fall prey to political games if the United States invaded Iran. The second assumption was that the shootings were intentional, not accidental. The reason for this was that the plane had been moving away from the airport and not approaching the capital. Radars clearly could show this and it could have been detected even by eye. Additionally, the plane had been shot twice. With the first shot, the plane just caught fire and the pilots were about to return to the airport, but the second shot ended everything.
Everyone wanted the perpetrators of this crime to be tried. The families demanded a fair trial to investigate what had happened. Iran initially refused to send the black boxes until, after months of pressure from the Canadian and Ukrainian governments, it sent them to France for investigation.
Over the past year, the Islamic Republic is alleged to have pressured the families of the victims not to follow up on what happened. Some families said officers threatened to arrest and rape them if they protested and were interviewed in the media.
Hamed Esmaeilion, an Iranian writer and dentist living in Canada, who lost his 9 year old daughter and wife in the crash, said the regime had collected and destroyed the remains of the passengers and the remaining parts of the plane.
The families of the victims, who were living outside Iran, said in a recent statement on Instagram that they would first seek a trial and expose the perpetrators of the crime, and then receive compensation. They said they did not want the Islamic Republic to hold any ceremonies for their parents, brothers, sisters, and children, but instead had to introduce the killers to the people and explain why they committed the crime.
Image credit: Fars News Agency
