Ukraine Air Boeing 737 Crashes in Iran -- 3rd Update
January 08 2020 - 12:48AM
Dow Jones News
By Aresu Eqbali and Rory Jones
A Ukraine International Airlines jetliner crashed shortly after
takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday with at least 170 passengers and
crew members on board, according to Iranian state television.
The Boeing Co. 737-800 single-aisle jet crashed after departing
the Iranian capital's Imam Khomeini International Airport en route
to Kyiv.
Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran's emergency medical
services, said in a phone interview that there were no survivors.
"All the passengers have died. Bodies are being collected by the
relief team to transfer to the coroner as soon as possible."
The cause of aircraft accidents can take months or years to
resolve, but heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. have
focused attention on potential ripple effects in the aviation
industry in one of the world's busiest flight corridors, a
crossroads for services between the Middle East, Europe, Asia and
Africa.
Ukraine International has a fleet of 40 jets, most of them
modern, Western-built jetliners rented from aircraft lessors.
The airline couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Iran has a relatively poor air safety record, with its airlines
and infrastructure hobbled by sanctions that led to spare shortages
and the cancellation of $40 billion in new aircraft from Boeing and
Airbus SE.
An Iranian air accident investigation team was headed to the
crash, the spokesman for Iran's air regulator told state
television. A report on casualties would come later, the spokesman
said.
The crash came after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
launched a series of strikes against two bases with U.S. troops in
Iraq, which the Iranian force said were retribution for the U.S.
killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Over the past year, Boeing Co. has suffered a series of
technical failures with its newer-version 737 MAX aircraft. The
Ukrainian 737 is an earlier model and doesn't have the
flight-control feature that was implicated in crashes last year and
led to Boeing grounding the MAX fleet globally.
The Wall Street Journal couldn't independently verify what
caused the crash. Iranian media said it was due to a technical
fault without explaining how they reached that conclusion.
Determining the likely cause of a crash typically can take days or
months.
A Boeing spokesman said the company is aware of the media
reports and is gathering information.
Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 08, 2020 00:33 ET (05:33 GMT)
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