Iran's Influence on International Affairs

"The first thing that comes to your mind is that this was not a mistake. This could not have been a mistake."

"This is a plane leaving the airport and three minutes later it's shot down."

"I never gave [my brother] a strong hug at the end because I was not very emotional. I was thinking 'He is going, I will see him shortly'."

"I couldn't really believe what had happened. I took the phone and tried to call the airport to see if there was another Ukrainian airliner. The person I talked to said, 'No, there was only one flight.' I was just shaking."

Ali Pourzarabi, bereaved brother of Ukraine Airlines PS752 doomed flight, Iran

 

"I think this is a new low they went to."

"To be able to ruthlessly sacrifice a planeload of people in the worst possible way, subject them to the pain and agony for three minutes on a plunging plane ... that's just unimaginable."

"I told her [his mother] I'm really getting worried."

"She said, 'No, you'll see me tomorrow, you'll pick me up at the airport." 

"All the hopes I had were shattered. I could not even cry because I was so shocked."

Amir Alavi, Iranian-Canadian, bereaved son, Toronto

Investigators analyze the fragments and remains of the Ukraine International Airlines plane that was shot down by Iran on Jan. 8, 2020. Photo by National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine / AFP

There was a total of 167 passengers, 58 Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents of Canada and another 53 returning to Canada for studies. Others aboard were from the UK,Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Sweden. They had flown to Iran to visit relatives, to celebrate the season, to get married, two years ago. "Full takeoff thrust", Captain Volodymyr Gaponenko, the 50-year-old pilot of the Ukraine Airlines plane said. "Eighty knots" responded First Officer Serhii Khomenko, 48, the Boeing 737-800 lifting off from Iran's Imam Khomeini Airport on 8 January, 2020.

"Good morning", Khomenko greeted the air traffic control: "On board, on course". Six minutes after takeoff the plane plummeted to earth, flames from its fuselage lighting its way in the pre-dawn darkness. The airliner hit a park gazebo, plowed across a soccer field and finally exploded in a fiery ball, breaking the jet into pieces. No living soul could survive that inferno and its disastrous crash. Passengers' possessions were strewn everywhere, the passengers themselves, torn to pieces, were as well.

Iran's Republican Guard Corps had in the early morning hours moved a mobile anti-aircraft battery near the airport six hours previously. Tehran was on high alert, after missiles had been shot off into Iraq to hit two American bases in retaliation for a U.S. missile strike that hit a vehicle carrying the senior head of the al-Quds division of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, Brig.-Gen.Qasem Soleimani, whose function was to act for the state abroad. 

 

In anticipation of a response strike from the U.S. the IRGC was on high alert. Nevertheless no one in command, nor the government in Tehran closed their air space to commercial traffic At least four other commercial flights took off from the airport in a trajectory similar to that of PS752, unaware of the tense situation, but suffering no consequences. 

 

The cockpit voice recorder of the downed airliner recovered after the crash had picked up "a strong and short impulse similar to a detonation" at 6:15 a.m.; an altitude warning tone sounding in the cockpit. "I have a strong feeling about [a] bad event", the instructor pilot said in the recording. "What is this?! the captain responded. And seventeen seconds later the recording stopped: 6:16 a.m.

The Ukrainian jet had taken off from the airport at 6:12 a.m. and for three minutes all was calm as it headed toward Kyiv, a three-and-a-half-hour flight. At 6:16 a.m. the pilot of an incoming flight of Iran's
Aseman Airlines reported to air traffic controllers an unusual sighting: "A series of flares ... like that of a missile ... Is there anything like this over there?" Not that the controller knew of. But he attempted for the following two minutes to repeatedly raise the Ukraine International flight, but had no response.

Iranians take photos during an exhibition displaying missiles of the kind used during Iran’s retaliatory strike on the U.S Ayn al-Asad military base in 2020 are seen on display at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla in Tehran Jan. 7, 2022. Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

"It was an explosion sir; we saw a huge light over there. I wonder what it was really!", the approaching Aseman pilot said, when the flight controller asked just exactly what was seen. The IRGC crew of the TOR M1 air-defence system spotted they decided, not an airliner full of passengers at 6:14 a.m. but an infinitely smaller, faster cruise missile, assuming the U.S. military deployed it. It took 39 seconds and the crew fired their first SA-15 missile, hitting the plane. A second missile was dispatched 12 seconds later.

The PS752 flight path shows the pilots making a desperate attempt following the first blast to turn around to fly back to the airport. Engulfed in flames the 737 crashed near Khalajabad instead, southwest of Tehran. Amateur video showed a massive explosion lighting up the still-dark sky. A video that would be played all across the world, while the government of Iran denied they had any involvement it what they claimed was a 'technical' crash.

 

Soon after the crash of PS752, Tehran, refusing to admit it had any hand in the catastrophic collision between a passenger jet and two missiles fired by the IRGC, deliberately destroying the airliner and all those within, photographs taken of the site of the vast debris field showed bulldozers shovelling up debris, completely and deliberately destroying any vestiges of the crash that might be helpful to investigators into its cause. People were seen in the area, looting pieces of the plane along with the personal belongings of its passengers.

"Iran contends that its decision to keep its airspace open and its corresponding airspace management decisions were justified and based on sound risk assessment. Iran’s risk assessment, as presented in the Final Report, failed to address contradictory information suggesting that risk levels were much higher. Iran’s air defences represented a clear and present danger. Its military was on high alert and tasked with monitoring airspace where multiple civilian aircraft would be present. Iran implemented a single mitigation measure that required military pre-authorization for flights before take-off from Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA). Iran’s determination that the risk was “low,” the decision to keep its airspace open over Tehran, and the implementation of only one preventative measure were all flawed decisions. It is the Forensic Team’s assessment that this fell short of internationally recognized standards in place to ensure airspace safety."

"Furthermore, Iran did not provide official notification of the increased risk to airlines and pilots before Flight PS752 departed or adequately explain why this basic measure was not implemented. Iranian military authorities were the only ones who were aware of the recent military activities and high alert resulting from Iran’s launch of missiles into Iraq. Only they knew that SAM units had been deployed in proximity to an international airport. Despite having knowledge of International Civil Aviation Organization guidance from 2018 with respect to “conflict zones,” Iran chose not to notify airlines of this danger. This lack of pertinent threat-related information deprived airlines (such as Ukraine International Airlines) of the full and up-to-date picture of conditions necessary to determine whether it was safe to fly."

Forensic Examination and Assessment Team, Government of Canada

Some of the Canadian victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752, which was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after takeoff from Tehran on Jan. 8, 2020, killing all 176 aboard. Photo by Handout

"Human Error" Thus Forgivable

"It does not explain any of the underlying factors behind why the missiles were launched at PS752, which is the stated cause of this accident."

"The report says what happened, but it doesn't answer the why. It is incomplete. It raises more questions than it answered."

"Given this unprecedented situation, where the state whose military was implicated in the event led the investigation, and given its impact within Canada, we feel that it is important to publicly convey our independent assessment of the final report."

"To date, Iran has provided no evidence to support this scenario [contained in the report]; however, it is a plausible explanation of what happened."

"Nor does the report discuss what steps the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has taken since then to identify the underlying safety deficiencies that allowed such an error to occur, nor what safety action has been taken to prevent such an event happening again."

"Without this, how can the international civil aviation community be assured that such a tragic event won't happen again?"

"[The filing of Iran's final report] doesn't end the quest for answers."

Kathy Fox, chairwoman, Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Montreal 

"The underlying facts behind each of those [basic events in the report], is left unexplained or unknown."

"There are many things beneath the surface that are not in the report."

Ewan Tasker, Canadian representative observing Iranian investigation 

"It is unthinkable that a government can so ruthlessly murder innocent passengers as a sacrifice for its military adventurism and as a way to prevent a war in the face of its reckless behaviour."

Families of Flight PS752 victims

"They're hiding the information about the man responsible for ordering the missile launch and those who kept open the airspace that night."

"We know that they don't want to tell the truth."

Mohsen Ahmadipour, Gatineau Quebec

 

 

On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 left Tehran airport on what would under other circumstances, be a normal flight. But this was not a normal day. There was a tense atmosphere prevailing, a situation of downplayed conflict. Tehran was expecting an American response to Iran's having shot off a number of missiles toward a U.S. military base in Iraq which wounded a number of American military personnel. That launching of missiles was a retaliatory move by Iran on the targeted death-by-missile of its top general who led the Al Quds division of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps.

 

On Jan. 8, 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in the skies over Tehran with two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 people aboard, including 138 people with ties to Canada. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)

Flight PS752 was shot out of the sky mere minutes after takeoff. Struck by two Iranian military missiles. Loss of life was total, both passengers and crew, totalling 176 lives lost. The majority of the passengers were en route to Canada. There were 55 Canadian citizens aboard the flight, and another 30 people were permanent residents of Canada, while dozens more were either attending universities in Canada, or had other connections, travelling on visas.

 

According to the long-awaited Iranian report, Flight PS752 was erroneously identified as an incoming missile, a military threat. Caused, it was asserted, as a result of a misalignment of the missile launcher's radar which made the passenger plane's trajectory appear as though it was approaching Tehran, not moving away from it. Leading the operator to take immediate action to shoot down an 'incoming missile'. The operator, moreover had no permission to shoot, from senior officers, as would normally be the case. 

 

 Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 Reuters

The report, in fact, provides no evidence whatever to support the Iranian government's version of how events unfolded. No Canadian officials were given permission to hear the cockpit recordings, nor were they given access to the flight data recording from the black box There was no breakdown of Iran's military actions, an inadequate completion of the scope of Iran's report, critiqued the Transportation Safety Board.

 

Making it obvious that there was a lack of transparency and a presentation lacking sufficient independence of Iran's investigators from its government. The report as described by appointed representative Ewan Tasker to Iran's investigation,  is "thin" on answers, outlining basic events, yet failing to dig deeper on Iran's military and government roles in the tragedy. Mr.Tasker had rendered 120 questions and concerns from Canada before the completion of the report; the report failed to address them. 

 

The Transportation Board, despite the report, remained with unanswered questions of the utmost importance in the case. Starting with the sequence of events leading to the fired missiles. Then there is the stark disbelief that Iran would maintain open airspace during a military alert, to permit civilian airlines continued operation under such tense conditions. At the very time that Iran was anticipating the potential of an American attack with its defence forces in a state of readiness for war.

 

Iran took the U.S. assassination of Major-General Qassem Soleimani as a statement of war intent. Air traffic between Baghdad and Tehran had been suspended as a reflection of safety concerns, with measures in place to manage risk posed to civilian flights during the crisis. According to the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the plane "was under control of Iranian air traffic control and the takeoff clearance was issued after coordination with [the] military sector."

 

Nine Ukrainian crew members were killed, along with 167 passengers   Reuters

 

Iran's Deliberate Lack of Accountability : Murder of 176 Aboard Ukraine Flight PS752

"[While] the existing international rules-based system [of international aviation rules] works well and serves the intended purpose to uncover what happened and improve aviation safety, [the shooting down of Flight PS752 is different because] military activity is the cause."

"Investigating a crash that results from a mechanical failure, a design flaw, bad weather, pilot error and so forth is not the same as investigating a military shoot-down. The existing system is not well suited to handle the latter."

"In the case of a military shoot-down, that means the very government involved in causing the disaster [Iran in this case] is in complete control of the safety investigation, obvious conflicts of interest notwithstanding, with few safeguards to ensure independence, impartiality or legitimacy."

"This undermines the investigation's credibility and enables a sense of impunity in avoiding essential questions. The ability of the international community to implement effective measures to prevent similar disasters is thus impaired."

"The capacity of the international community and the ability of the victims of the disaster to win any kind of accountability from the regime it should go without saying, are also rather impaired."

"Our Western democratic approach to human rights, the rule of law, investigative and judicial independence, due process, transparency and accountability is antithetical to Iran's. Iran is identified in Canadian law as a state supporter of terrorism. The Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] and several other surrogates are listed under our Criminal Code as terrorist entities."

Flight PS752: The long road to transparency accountability and justice. Ralph Goodale, report

Rescue workers search the scene where an Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

 

It is almost a year ago that the IRGC shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet with 176 passengers and crew aboard. Two missiles hit the jet which had just lifted off from an airport near the capital Tehran en route to Ukraine as its first stop, its ultimate destination Canada. All aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS52 perished. Among the passengers were 55 Canadian citizens, as well as another 81 permanent residents, students and others linked to Canada. There were also Iranian citizens, citizens of Afghanistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Sweden aboard the flight.

For days after the downing of the passenger jet the Islamic Republic of Iran refuted accusations that it was involved in the shoot-down. Officially the precise cause of the missile strikes have failed to be established. Iran has used every delaying tactic it possibly could, first in denying it was in any way involved, and later interminably delaying the handover of the recovered black boxes and other evidence to France whose laboratories were equipped to decipher the electronic data relevant to the missile hits and subsequent explosion.

That international aviation rules permit Iran itself to officially investigate the event itself, in the face of its delaying, evasive tactics and the denial of involvement in the disaster, represents a miscarriage of justice before any of the critical questions surrounding the event can even be answered, and the investigation brought to a reasonable conclusion, bringing closure to the bereaved families of the victims. Iranian-Canadians whose family members' lives were destroyed in that crash demand answers and none are forthcoming. Iranians themselves protested and were summarily violently dispersed.

Iran's initial investigation concluded that 'human error' was involved in the shooting of two missiles by an IRGC commander at the airliner a few minutes after takeoff from the airport. The report by Goodale gave short shrift to the 'human error' causation, referring instead to "indications of incompetence, recklessness and wanton disregard for innocent human life". By happenstance a conversation between a victim's relative and the senior Iranian investigator, Hassan Rezaeifar had been recorded. The investigator as good as threatened the Canadian for his inconvenient demands for accountability of the death of his family member. 

What was divulged in that recorded conversation was a candid admission that there was deliberation in leaving Iranian airspace open to civilian flights at a time when the IRGC was busy shooting missiles into Iraq at U.S. bases in retaliation for the assassination of the IRGC's senior commander Qasem Soleimani by an American drone strike a few days before. The skies over Tehran remained open to civilian air traffic for the purpose of concealing  the retaliatory missile strikes on U.S. targets. 

 

Earlier in the day other passenger jets had taken off without incident. Allowing civilian planes to depart at a time when Iran was employing missile attacks directed toward Iraq meant they were being used as detection shields. A familiar ploy commonly utilized by the proxy Iranian terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah who often fire rockets and other missiles from civilian sites, similarly using civilian areas as shields whom return strikes penalize.

The police state of theocratic Iran plays by its own rules, while professing to honour international rules of conduct, just as its justice system bears little resemblance to that of democratic nations of the world, as well as non-democratic nations that have a true regard for what constitutes justice. "The party responsible for the situation is investigating itself, largely in secret. That does not inspire confidence of trust", wrote Goodale in his report. None of the countries involved; Sweden, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom or Canada had any confidence that Iran's behaviour would be honourably disposed to the truth, in any event.

Canada is clearly naive in demanding 'accountability' from Iran, even in claiming that it is acting in tandem with the other countries whose nationals were also victim of the shooting down of the Ukrainian airliner. Iran is defiant and elusive, totally disinterested in what outside entities, be they other governments of other nations, human rights groups or UN-linked investigations urge it to do. It has its own self-interested rules of engagement and its own national justice protocols having little to do with justice as it is known in other jurisdictions. It is a law unto itself. 

Stemming from the ultimate authority: Iran's very own special brand of Islam.

"The report is significant in a number of ways that bring Iran’s claims into serious question and demand Iran to be transparent about the truth. Mr. Goodale raises a multitude of questions that Iran must answer – questions that render Iran’s claims of human error being the cause of the downing effectively implausible. It also brings to light Iran’s suspect behaviour in the aftermath of the downing, including the hurried destruction of the crash site, withholding of the black boxes for half a year, intimidations of the victims' families, and failure to provide any evidence for its claims in the four interim reports thus far. Furthermore, the report points to the obvious flaws in the current investigation process that have reduced the much-needed technical investigations into an absurd self-investigation by the armed forces that shot down the aircraft." 

Statement From The Association of Victims’ Families of Flight PS752 in Response to Special Advisor Ralph Goodale’s Report

Investigators comb through the wreckage of Flight PS752 outside Tehran. (Reuters)

Canada-Iran Relations

"On January 8, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. Tragically, 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were among the 176 people killed in this national tragedy." 

"Canada and the other members of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752 have called for accountability for those responsible for the tragedy through an independent criminal investigation followed by transparent and impartial judicial proceedings which conform to international standards of due process and human rights."

"The Prosecutor General of Ukraine has invited Canada and other affected nations to participate in a joint criminal investigation. RCMP Federal Policing National Security representatives are engaged with Ukrainian counterparts to determine the best methods to support any criminal investigation going forward. The RCMP is also undertaking investigative steps to preserve any evidence that may reside in Canada."

Government of Canada, October 27, 2020

"If the Canadian government thinks that it can put pressure on Iran with propaganda and unrealistic statements, it will not work."

"[Canada has been] hampering Tehran's efforts to clarify the truth [relating to the crash of the Ukrainian airliner]."

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand

Composite photographs of some of the victims of Ukraine Flight 752

"[The world must take] a decisive stance [against Iran]."

"The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran's regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance  from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles program."

King Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia

Clearly, the Islamic Republic of Iran feels put-upon by ongoing pressure exerted on it for a full explanation of the shooting down of 176 people on Flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv in early January. Iran's initial dismissal of the tragedy, denying that it had anything to do with the downing of the passenger jet was soon put to the lie with incriminating evidence presented that could no longer be denied by Tehran. 

Eventually a report was issued by Iran explaining that a miscommunication had taken place, that through inadvertence an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military officer misidentified the passenger jet for an "invading missile after the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. air base in western Iraq, in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of its military commander Qassem Soleimani" a week earlier. A simple enough request by Canada to be given access to the crash site, to receive a full explanation and access to the flight recorder has gone unanswered.

Among the 167 civilians that lost their lives when the Ukraine plane was shot down were 57 Canadian citizens and a large group of Iranian students with visas to study at Canadian universities. At the very time that the Iranian Republic claims nothing prevents Canada from "investigating the incident in accordance with international conventions", its deputy foreign minister states that the "Canadian government does not respect international law" and its harassment of Iran for more access to data is "based on political prejudice".

Political prejudice? Of a country well known for its support of terrorism? Whose al Quds division of the IRGC is helping Syria's President Bashar al-Assad terrorize its own Sunni Syrian population? The very same Iran that is supporting and championing the Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen? With a staggering combined death toll? Would this be the Iran that is inserting itself into Iraq for a permanent stay of influence in establishing its Shiite axis in the Middle East, roiling the majority Sunni Muslim states by threats both implied and actual?

This is the Islamist theocracy that while denying the Holocaust announces its intention to embark on another one, to destroy the presence of the State of Israel in the Middle East. Tehran's threats and interference in the affairs of its neighbours, its destabilizing sectarian plots and its nuclear ambitions have managed to unite most of the Arab states in the Middle East to defend themselves by proxy, that proxy being the Jewish state known for its ability to fend off threats its existence. The fear and loathing that Shi'ite Iran has instilled in its Sunni Arab neighbours has drawn them into the realization that Israel is not the enemy, after all.

Iran doesn't limit its aggression and threats to the Middle East, however. Its deputy foreign minister also accuses Canada of being a safe haven for Iranians that Tehran claims should be extradited to stand trial in Iran for crimes. The "Iranian government had some money in the embassy and some other diplomatic centres, mostly related to the Iranian Cultural Counsel, which Canada illegally confiscated ... and Canada must repay", he avers, referring to the previous Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper closing down the Canadian Embassy in Tehran, and ushering the Iranian mission out of Canada in 2012.

The money to which  the deputy minister refers was seized in Canada to be apportioned through a successful law suit to victims of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas and Hezbollah, two Iranian militia proxies that threaten and attack Israel and Jews abroad on behalf of the Iranian Republic. Two years earlier the Canadian House of Commons passed a resolution to designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity. A process that has not yet been carried through to completion, but should.

 

Debris is seen from an Ukrainian plane which crashed as authorities work at the scene in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)