All 167 passengers and 9 crew members on board were killed.
The Boeing 737-800, registration UR-PSR, had landed on schedule at 00:57 hours local time at Tehran. The return leg back to Kiev was due to depart at 05:15 local time (01:45 UTC).
In the meantime, around 02:15 hours local time in Iran, numerous ballistic missiles were fired from Iran towards U.S. bases in Iraq in response to the killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani by a United States drone strike.
As a result, this military operation changed the alertness level of Iran's air defense. At approximately 04:00 the military sector informed the civil sector of the country's Airspace Control that only the flights already detected and cleared for flight operations by the defense network could be permitted to start up. This would ensure the correct identification of civil flights by the defense network and avoiding targeting them by mistake.
At 05:49 the doors were closed, and the aircraft was ready to depart. Two minutes later the flight requested to start up the engines. After contacting the Area Control Center, the ATC unit requested clearance for the Ukrainian flight at 05:52.
The aircraft then taxied to runway 29R and commenced the takeoff roll at 06:11. After takeoff the flight contacted Mehrabad Radar and was cleared to climb to FL260 and turn right after reaching 6000 feet, heading direct to the PAROT reporting point.
Missiles were then fired at the aircraft by the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) amidst heightened tensions between Iran and the United States. The incident occurred five days after the United States carried out the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and some hours after Iran retaliated with Operation Martyr Soleimani, in which the IRGC fired dozens of ballistic missiles on American forces; both the assassination and the missile strikes took place in Iraq.
The Boeing 737-800, registration UR-PSR, had landed on schedule at 00:57 hours local time at Tehran. The return leg back to Kiev was due to depart at 05:15 local time (01:45 UTC).
In the meantime, around 02:15 hours local time in Iran, numerous ballistic missiles were fired from Iran towards U.S. bases in Iraq in response to the killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani by a United States drone strike.
As a result, this military operation changed the alertness level of Iran's air defense. At approximately 04:00 the military sector informed the civil sector of the country's Airspace Control that only the flights already detected and cleared for flight operations by the defense network could be permitted to start up. This would ensure the correct identification of civil flights by the defense network and avoiding targeting them by mistake.
At 05:49 the doors were closed, and the aircraft was ready to depart. Two minutes later the flight requested to start up the engines. After contacting the Area Control Center, the ATC unit requested clearance for the Ukrainian flight at 05:52.
The aircraft then taxied to runway 29R and commenced the takeoff roll at 06:11. After takeoff the flight contacted Mehrabad Radar and was cleared to climb to FL260 and turn right after reaching 6000 feet, heading direct to the PAROT reporting point.
Iranian authorities initially denied having any responsibility for the aircraft's destruction, but investigations by various intelligence agencies from the Western world as well as by the Iranian public later revealed that it had been struck by two surface-to-air missiles. On the 11th of January 2020, the Government of Iran admitted that the IRGC had targeted Flight 752 after mistakenly identifying it as an American cruise missile.
Aircraft Information:
Airline: Ukraine International Airlines
Code: PS/AUI
Aircraft: Boeing 737-8KV
Registration: UR-PSR
Serial Number: 38124
Engines: CFMI CFM56-7B24E
First Flew: 21/06/2016
Age: 3.7 Years
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