Families of Ukrainian Plane Crash Victims Call on Airlines: Avoid Flying Through Iranian Airspace
According to CBC News, families of those killed in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ missile attack on a Ukrainian flight in Iran have called on European and international airlines to refrain from negotiating with the Iranian government to resume flights through Iranian airspace until Tehran provides full cooperation regarding the missile attack on Flight 752 and punishes those responsible.
Flight 752 of Ukraine International Airlines, which departed Tehran on January 8, 2020 (December 29, 1398 in the Iranian calendar) bound for Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, with 176 passengers on board, crashed minutes after takeoff due to a missile attack by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near Parand in Tehran province, killing all passengers aboard, mostly of Iranian descent. This tragedy occurred hours after the Guard’s missile attack on the Ain al-Asad military base in Iraq, which hosts American forces.
An association representing families of the victims submitted an online petition requesting that German airline Lufthansa refrain from using Iranian airspace. The request came after Iranian news sites reported that European airlines, led by Lufthansa, had held extensive negotiations regarding the use of Iranian airspace.
According to CBC News, since the petition was launched on Sunday, May 11, more than 14,000 people have signed it.
Hamed Esmaeilion, spokesman for the families association of Flight PS 752 victims, who himself lost his wife and daughter in the tragedy, says that the Iranian government must be held accountable. The crashed Ukrainian flight had 55 Canadian citizens aboard.
Previously, Human Rights Watch accused Iranian officials of “following past patterns, evading responsibility and, instead of providing details of investigations into the plane’s downing and those responsible for the deadly mistake, prosecuting individuals who had protested against the Guard’s deadly attack on the Ukrainian plane.”
According to the human rights organization, the Iranian judicial system condemned at least 13 people in late April 2020 to lengthy prison sentences solely for peaceful protests against the Guard’s deadly attack on the Ukrainian plane and the Iranian government’s initial denial of the attack on the civilian passenger aircraft.
Despite their initial denials, Iranian officials eventually announced, following the release of reports by American intelligence agencies, that they had mistakenly targeted and shot down the Ukrainian aircraft with an air defense missile.
Source: Radio Farda
