Crash Victims’ Families Call on Airlines to Uphold Ban on Flights to Iran

To: EU Members, European Airlines and the Aviation Society

According to claims by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the European Union, European airlines and the Aviation Society are considering a return to Iran’s flight corridors. Officials have stated that a group of airlines, led by Lufthansa, have held extensive talks on the matter.

This prompts an important question: How can one forget Flight PS752 and all the passengers that never reached their destinations?

It has been only four months since the disaster that took their lives, and the world remembers the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ confession that it opened fire on defenseless humans. What guarantees are there that the Guards will not repeat a similar crime, just as investigations are being blocked and the perpetrators are praised in Iran? What guarantees are there for the safety of passengers?

The EU Member States should not agree to flights over Iranian airspace until the Iranian government demonstrates its commitment to cooperating with international bodies to conduct a credible investigation into the events leading to the destruction of PS752, including identifying the perpetrators.

 

The families of the victims of the Ukrainian International Airlines flight that was shot down by the Revolutionary Guards on January 8 have appealed to the European Union, European airlines and the Aviation Society not to resume flights in Iranian airspace until Iran is brought to justice for the catastrophe.

“Have you forgotten Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 and its passengers who never arrived at their destinations? It has been only four months since the Revolutionary Guards opened fire on 176 defenseless passengers and shot the plane down only three minutes into the flight,” the families’ public statement said.

The Revolutionary Guards fired two missiles at Flight P752 as it left Tehran’s Khomeini International Airport en route to Kiev, bringing the plane down at 6:19am and killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.

The appeal, the second issued by the victims’ families, specifically addressed European airlines and the authorities that oversee them following reports that some of them, led by Lufthansa, had entered into discussions about resuming flights. “While the case of Flight PS752 remains undecided, how can you trust Iran not to target another plane?” the letter asks. “How can you put the lives of other passengers in danger?”

After the downing of the flight by the Revolutionary Guards, European airlines suspended flights to Iran and temporarily barred flights from entering Iranian airspace en route to other countries. Reports emerged on May 8 that European airlines had begun considering reinstating flights to Iran, as Mohammad Saeed Sharafi, the Director General of Iran Civil Aviation Organization’s Legal and International Affairs, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that several meetings had taken place between the airlines and the organization in an effort to rebuild trust between the two sides. 

On May 5, according to Sharafi, officials managing the German airline Lufthansa’s operations in Iran and the heads of security and safety for other European airlines discussed the safety measures that needed to be put in place in order to resume flights to Iran once the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic have subsided.

The families of the victims of Flight PS752 responded quickly, reminding European airlines of the details and depth of the tragedy, as well as the Revolutionary Guards’ responsibility for the disaster, and urging them to not endanger the lives of passengers by resuming flights to Iran. They also called on people to endorse their campaign by adding their names to the appeal to the European airline industry.

“We want to tell airlines, passengers and governments that Iran will benefit enormously if no serious action is taken,” Hamed Esmaeilion, the spokesman for the victims’ families, told IranWire. “Perhaps such serious action will be taken, but, for the moment, there is no sign of it.”

Esmaeilion's wife, Parisa Eghbalian, and his 10-year-old daughter, Rira, were both on the flight. “After launching this campaign we will definitely bring the subject to the attention of political officials. We do not know how successful it will be in preventing European airlines from flying to Iran,” he said.

The families first spoke out together in March, 45 days after Flight 752 was shot down, releasing a statement and letter, which was signed by thousands of people. The letter appealed to the governments of the countries where the flight’s passengers and crew lived — Ukraine, Canada, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden —as well as to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Court of Justice and other heads of states, urging them to enact policies to force the Islamic Republic to cooperate fully with the investigation into the crime and to hand over the plane’s black box.

“The first campaign played a significant role in having our voices heard,” Esmaeilion said. “It was the first step.”

 

From Cover-Up to “Human Error” and Shirking Responsibility

A few hours before the Revolutionary Guards’ missiles shot down the Ukrainian passenger plane on January 8, Iran launched a missile attack on Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of General Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the Guards’ expeditionary Quds Force. An American drone strike near Baghdad International Airport killed him on January 3. Despite the possibility of American forces launching an air attack, Iran did not close its airspace to passenger planes.

For a full three days, Islamic Republic officials covered up the fact that Ukrainian Flight 752 had been shot down by the Guards and claimed that the plane had crashed due to technical problems. Following revelations in the international media, officials then blamed the crash on air control operators and put it down to “human error,” stating they had mistaken the plane for a cruise missile. As of now, the Islamic Republic has yet to hand over the plane’s black box or to explain why passenger flights were allowed to continue when they expected a possible air attack by the US, or why they covered up the facts for three days.

Most of the flight’s passengers were residents or citizens of Canada. After the disaster, the Canadian government expressed sympathy with the victims’ family and demanded that the Islamic Republic explain events and give the black box to Ukraine. However, this process was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. “Unfortunately, we have not had much communication with Canadian officials for the last three weeks, but I hope to have another meeting with them in the next week,”  Esmaeilion said, adding, “nothing has been set.”

On April 15, in an exclusive report, Radio Farda, the US-funded Persian-language radio station and website based in Prague, reported that Iran had sent a “letter of understanding” to Ukraine, asking the Ukrainian government to refrain from a criminal and legal pursuit of the incident and confirming this by signing the memorandum. Sources told Radio Farda that “the letter of understanding is worded in a way that allows Iran to avoid responsibility for the incident.”

In light of this report, Esmaeilion said, “we met with Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada two weeks ago. He assured us that any proposal from Iran would definitely be discussed with Canada. We do not know the exact text of the letter that was sent to Ukraine but we do know that Ukraine has categorically rejected the proposal. Also, the Ukrainian ambassador told us officially that Iran aims to sow discord among countries involved in the case. At the same time, in separate statements, the Canadian foreign minister, the special advisor to the government of Canada for the case and Canada’s minister of transportation have said that this is part of contradictory and defective statements issued by Iran.

“The case of Flight 752 is not subject to the statute of limitations,”, Esmaeilion said. “If Iran is under the impression that it can buy itself time through such moves, it should forget about it and cooperate with international institutions.”

 

Attempts to Bribe the Victims’ Families

But it is not only the government of Ukraine that Iran has targeted with such deceptive moves. The Islamic Republic has also implicitly tried to bribe the victims’ families by declaring that those who had lost their lives were “martyrs” so that it can continue to shirk responsibility for the incident.

The latest move came last week, when General Taghi Mehri, head of Iran’s Military Conscription Bureau, reported that members of the victims’ families could be exempt from mandatory military service. “Since the Iranian victims of the Ukrainian plane crash have been recognized as martyrs, the General Staff of the Armed Forces has ordered that the families of these loved ones enjoy all the benefits that the Public Conscription Law provides for the families of martyrs,” he said.

 “The families with whom I am in contact — and they are not just a few — are very angry about this,” Esmaeilion said. “What they want is a clear answer, but the judiciary refuses to provide such an answer.”

Prior to this, the Iranian government had tried other strategies to avoid acknowledging responsibility for the incident, including taking action against protesters and giving them long prison sentences, confiscating the bodies of the dead, restricting burial ceremonies and destroying evidence at the crash site, and threatening and intimidating the families of the victims in an attempt to silence them.

“The association of Flight 752 victims’ families have expressed sympathy on all social media with friends who have been unjustly sentenced,” Esmaeilion said. “We inform all governments involved in this case about legal actions taken by Iran but we cannot, by ourselves, force the Iranian judiciary to respect justice. They do whatever they want and we can only protest and inform international institutions.”

According to Esmaeilion, instead of holding itself accountable to the international community, the Islamic Republic has opened a case against itself with the Iranian judiciary. “The judiciary’s Human Rights Headquarters has hired a lawyer who contacts the families and tells them, ‘I am your lawyer. Come, let's sign a contract.’ Many families have not even responded to him because they do not believe that there is any justice to be found in Iran’s judiciary system. But the judiciary continues to contact them and asks them why they have rejected the lawyer’s offer. This is the game Iran is playing. It has opened a legal case against itself, conducts investigations by itself, and believes that the problem is solved.”

“They claim that military officials have been questioned as well but it is not clear at what level,” Esmaeilion pointed out. “But when we see officials such as Hajizadeh, the main figure in this crime, talking on TV for 40 minutes, it does not seem that anybody has been punished. Probably they have even been commended.”

Esmaeilion is referring to statements made by Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ Aerospace Force, on April 23, almost four months after Flight 752 was shot down by his forces. In the televised interview, he talked about Iran’s missile attack on Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq but said nothing about the Revolutionary Guards’ missile attack on a civilian passenger plane. After General Ghasem Soleimani was killed, he said, “the Americans had a false confidence that Iran would not respond. They were confident of this. But when the Iranian people chanted for revenge, they felt some danger and announced that if Iran took any action they would attack 52 targets. They thought Iran would retreat and would not take action. The Americans had said they would attack various cultural sites and the offices of the Supreme Leader. The Guards believed that the US would respond quickly and would attack targets in Iran, so the Guards were ready to retaliate by attacking 400 targets.”

Hajizadeh’s statements support speculation that Iran planned to use a human shield to prevent attacks by the US. Very early on, analysts had speculated that it was for this reason that the Iranian government refused to close its airspace to passenger planes. And now the families of the victims ask European airlines: Is there any guarantee that Iran will not fire on another plane? Have you been given a guarantee that the rest of the world knows nothing about?

 

Related Coverage:

100 Days after Killing 176 Passengers, Iran Still Refuses to Hand Over Flight Recorder, 16 April 2020

The Guards Destroy Crash Site Evidence and Harass Family of Victims, 29 March 2020

An Annual Review of Lies: "White House Made up the Lie that Iran Shot down the Ukrainian Passenger Plane”, 26 March 2020

First They Killed the Passengers, Now They are Harassing and Torturing Their Families, 20 March 2020

Iran’s President and Foreign Minister Knew the Guards Shot Down Passenger Plane, 4 February 2020

Ukraine Shocked by Revelations that Iran Saw Both Launch and Blast, 3 February 2020

Interview with an Outraged, Grief Stricken Hacktivist, 24 January 2020

Zarif Laughs Off Iran’s Responsibility for 176 Deaths, 20 January 2020

Iran’s Saturday of Rage: Online Anger Pours into the Streets, 11 January 2020

The Ukrainian Plane Crash and a Writer’s Desperate Quest for Truth, 9 January 2020