Iran: Ukrainian airline Boeing 737 crashed outside Tehran with 180 aboard
A Ukrainian International Airlines flight with 180 passengers and crew onboard crashed just after takeoff from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport early Wednesday, en route to Kiev, Iranian state media reported. The Iranian news reports attributed the crash to unspecified mechanical problems, and civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh said a team of investigators is at the site of the wreckage. "The plane is on fire but we have sent crews," Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency services, told state TV, "and we may be able to save some passengers." Iran's Red Crescent later said there's no chance of finding survivors.
FlightRadar24 said the airliner appeared to stop sending data about two minutes into the flight.
Hours before the crash, Iran had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi military bases that house U.S. and other allied forces. No U.S. casualties have been reported. There is no apparent connection between the two events, but the crash does contain elements from the largest news stories of 2019: U.S.-Iran hostilities, Ukraine, and Boeing's 737 — though this was a 737-800 jet, not the troubled 737 MAX, which has been grounded worldwide for 10 months.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
A peek inside Europe’s luxury new sleeper busThe Week Recommends Overnight service with stops across Switzerland and the Netherlands promises a comfortable no-fly adventure
-
The 8 best drama movies of 2025the week recommends Nuclear war, dictatorship and the summer of 2020 highlight the most important and memorable films of 2025
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
It Was Just an Accident: a ‘striking’ attack on the Iranian regimeThe Week Recommends Jafar Panahi’s furious Palme d’Or-winning revenge thriller was made in secret
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Questions abound over the FAA’s management of BoeingTalking Points Some have called the agency’s actions underwhelming
