About 176 people were killed in the crash of a "Boeing 737" plane, belonging to the Ukrainian Airlines, after it took off, yesterday morning, from Tehran to Kiev, according to Iranian media.
In Kiev, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelinsky, stressed that no one survived the crash, saying that "all the passengers and crew" of the "Boeing 737" were "killed".
The senior official of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Vasyl Kirillich, gave similar information about the absence of survivors, and said, "According to preliminary figures, there were 176 people on board the plane, which was supposed to take a flight between Tehran and Kiev."
Earlier, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent, according to what was quoted by the semi-official student news agency ISNA, said, "It is absolutely impossible that there will be survivors among the passengers of the flight BS-752, which was traveling from Tehran to Kiev."
According to the agency, the crashed plane was carrying 176 people between passengers and crew.
For its part, the official Iranian news agency, "IRNA", said that the air disaster resulted in the "killing of all passengers."
The agency quoted a spokesman for Khomeini International Airport in Tehran as saying that the plane was carrying 176 people, including 167 passengers and nine crew.
In contrast, the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Authority said that Iran would not hand over the black box of the Ukrainian plane, which crashed on its soil earlier yesterday, to the company «Boeing» producing the plane.
For its part, the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran said that the plane crashed "due to a malfunction in the engine" and added, "It is unlikely that the matter was related to a terrorist act" at the moment, noting that the Ukrainian ambassador went to the crash site.
However, the Ukrainian embassy in Iran subsequently deleted an initial indication that the reason behind the crash of a Ukrainian plane outside Tehran was an engine failure.
In a second statement, she added that the reasons are not yet known, and that any comments made by her were unofficial. Zelincy ordered the creation of a crisis cell involving senior ministers, which would be managed by the Ukrainian National Security Agency.
Iran will not hand over the black box of the Ukrainian plane that crashed on its soil to the Boeing company, which produces the plane.