TripZillaOnly a few minutes after taking off from Tehran’s international airport, a Boeing 737 passenger plane bound for Ukraine has crashed, killing all 176 passengers onboard.
According to Iran’s Red Crescent, there was no chance of finding survivors. This was later confirmed by Pir Hossein Kulivand, an Iranian emergency official, who announced on state television that all passengers onboard were killed in the crash.
Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s foreign minister, revealed in a statement that among the passengers were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons on board the flight. According to civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh, the plane crashed five minutes following takeoff.
News of this tragic crash follows the recent of the fatal crashes of two 737 Max 8 aircrafts within 6 months in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which led to the eventual grounding of the model. The UIA 737-800 belongs to the same family as, but is different to the 737 Max 8.
There have been several deadly accidents involving the 737-800 aircrafts. A FlyDubai 737-800 flight from Dubai crashed prior to landing at Russia’s Rostov-on-Don airport, claiming 62 lives onboard.
Also read: Ethiopian Airlines ET 302 Crash: UPDATE
