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Features

Panic Spread on Flight 752 as the Plane Fell for Nearly Four Minutes

June 4, 2020
Emil Filtenborg and Stefan Weichert
4 min read
Oleksandr Ruvin, Ukraine's lead investigator into the crash, says Iranian officials have not cooperated with their enquiries
Oleksandr Ruvin, Ukraine's lead investigator into the crash, says Iranian officials have not cooperated with their enquiries
The passenger plane was shot down over Tehran in January, killing all 176 people on board
The passenger plane was shot down over Tehran in January, killing all 176 people on board
"This issue is not only about Ukraine but about the united front of the states of Canada, the UK, Sweden, Afghanistan and Ukraine"
"This issue is not only about Ukraine but about the united front of the states of Canada, the UK, Sweden, Afghanistan and Ukraine"

When planes crash, the passengers are usually found still fastened to their seats by their seatbelts. If they are not, it indicates there may have been panic in the moments before the crash. That now seems to be the case with the Ukrainian Airlines passenger flight which was shot down over Tehran in January, killing everyone on board and ultimately claiming 176 lives, 82 of them Iranian.

The fresh revelation stems from an interview conducted in May by the Ukrainian outlet Glavkom with the lead PS752 investigator on the Ukrainian side, Oleksandr Ruvin, who is director of the Kyiv Research Institute of Forensic Science.

"We saw the corpses of the dead lying on the ground, without chairs,” said Ruvin. “To make it clearer to you, I would say that if people were fastened in, they would fall with their seats, as the passengers of flight MH17 did. And what we saw in Iran means there was already panic on the plane.”

IranWire has since been working to confirm the content of the interview and requested an interview with follow-up questions to be put to Ruvin. But a press officer working under Ruvin declined the request on WhatsApp, writing:

"All that could be told, Mr. Ruvin told Glavcom. Everything else is the secret of the investigation. I'm sorry, I can add nothing."

 

Still No Sign of the Black Boxes

At the beginning of March, the two black boxes from the plane – one recording sounds onboard and one compiling data on the flight itself – were expected to be sent to Ukraine or France. But since the coronavirus pandemic flared up in both Europe and the Middle East, the Iranian government has been postponing the decryption and transfer of this vital material.

The black boxes could provide investigators with valuable information the minutes leading up to the crash. According to Ruvin, this is not the only area in which cooperation between the investigators and Iranian authorities has been lacking.

"We do not have [cooperation],” Ruvin says in the interview. “Iranians do not reply to our line [of communication]. They came to us once, and that's it.”

Rubin claims that Iran purposely worked to obfuscate Ukrainian investigators while they were still working on the crash site, up to and including confiscating items the Ukrainians found in the wreckage, which could have shed light on what happened during the crash.

"Their policemen and investigators arrived and took everything we found from us,” Ruvin says. “These are passports, cards, remnants of mobile phones, laptops, and two tablets. One of these was generally clean and working. A bag protected it and it remained intact.”

It is not only the Ukrainian investigators who are frustrated with the Iranian response to the catastrophe. This discontent is also spreading to the sphere of international politics.

 

Ukraine is Waiting for a Joint Effort

Two significant issues remain for Ukrainian politicians, explains Aleksei Jakubin, a senior lecturer at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and expert on Ukrainian politics. The first is the compensation promised to grieving families, and the second is the matter of permitting European and Ukrainian investigators to have a look at the two black boxes.

"There is miscommunication between Iran and Ukraine and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he says. “Ukraine wants the black boxes, but Iran has not sent them - maybe because of coronavirus, or something else, we don't know.

“The next problem is the compensation, because Ukraine now says it is too low. Iran did not respond to suggestions from Ukraine and other countries on a fair deal for compensation. Ukraine will probably wait and create a common position against Iran if Iran does not respond to the proposals in a couple of months.”

The Ukrainian media outlet 112 International recently reported the deputy foreign minister of Ukraine, Yevhen Yenin, as saying that Ukraine might want to seek redress from the International Court of Justice over the plane crash.

"If talks reach a deadlock,” Yevheyn said, “we will be forced to appeal to international arbitrators, particularly the International Court of Justice. This issue is not only about Ukraine but about the united front of the states of Canada, the UK, Sweden, Afghanistan and Ukraine.”

IranWire has contacted to the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine for comment. At the time of publication, the Foreign Ministry had not responded.

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