After Flight 752: where matters stood on 15 January 2020
A look back at the days after the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 was shot down near Tehran, and how Iran's account changed.
What did the world know about the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by 15 January 2020? Within a few days, the official explanation from Tehran had moved from denial to admission.
The flight was a scheduled service from Tehran to Kyiv, operated by Ukraine International Airlines. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 was shot down shortly after takeoff by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, killing all 176 people on board, as the background to these events describes.
Questions over the cause
On 9 January 2020, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference that it was too early to draw definitive conclusions that the downing was an act of war. He also condemned Iran's attack on U.S. bases in Iraq.
On 10 January 2020, after Mr Trudeau suggested that an Iranian missile had brought the plane down, Iranian authorities rejected the theory. The head of Iran's civil aviation authority said he was certain the aircraft had not been hit by a missile, and he continued to put the cause down to mechanical failure.
Tehran changes its account
The position did not hold for long. On 11 January 2020, Iran's President officially acknowledged that the country's armed forces had mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian airliner with a missile near Tehran.
The sequence of 9, 10 and 11 January 2020 therefore framed the situation as it stood on 15 January 2020: the cause was no longer in dispute, and Iran had acknowledged responsibility for the loss of the flight.
