Iran’s Minister of Transportation, Mohamed Eslami, has said that a “technical defect” caused the crash of a Boeing 737 aircraft belonging to Ukrainian airlines that crashed on Wednesday shortly after takeoff from Tehran International Airport, killing 176 people.
The Boeing 737-800 went down just minutes after taking off from Tehran’s airport, leaving no survivors.
An initial probe found the aircraft experienced a problem as it was leaving the airport zone, and was “on fire”.
Among the victims were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians including all nine crew, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Britons and three Germans, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said. Fifteen of the dead were children.
Tributes have been paid to three British nationals who died when a Ukrainian plane crashed in Iran.
Mohammed Reza Kadkhoda Zadeh, who owned a dry cleaners, BP engineer Sam Zokaei and PhD student and engineer Saeed Tahmasebi were all on board the flight.
The two ‘black boxes’ of the aircraft, the parameter recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, have both been found and are being analyzed by Iranian aviation experts. The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office has confirmed that the mortal remains of all the people traveling aboard the plane have been handed over to forensics.
