Iranian authorities had to close Tehran airport - UIA vice president

The Iranian authorities had to close Tehran's airport to protect passengers, Vice President of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Ihor Sosnovsky has said.

"I am absolutely convinced that if you are playing war, then you can play as much as you want, but there were normal people that you had to guard. They [the Iranian authorities] were obliged to close the airport if they shot somewhere from somewhere," he said at a briefing on Saturday, January 11.

A Ukraine International Airlines plane (flight PS752), en route from Tehran to Kyiv, crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport early on January 8. There were 176 people on board the aircraft. All of them died. The crash killed 11 Ukrainians (two passengers and all nine crew), as well as Iranians, Canadians, Swedes, Afghans, Germans, and Britons.

Iran had claimed that the plane had crashed due to an engine failure. However, early on January 11, Iran stated that it had shot down the Ukrainian passenger plane accidentally. The aircraft took off from the airport and was seen as an enemy target as it came close to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base.

op