Flight 752: where the inquiry stood on 13 January 2020
A look back at the diplomatic and official positions on the downing of the Ukrainian airliner near Tehran in the days before 13 January 2020.
What was known about the loss of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 as of 13 January 2020? By that date, Iran had acknowledged that its own armed forces were responsible, after several days in which the explanation had been disputed.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Tehran to Kyiv when it was shot down shortly after takeoff on 8 January 2020, killing all 176 people on board. The airline operating it was Ukraine International Airlines.
Caution, then denial
On 9 January 2020, Canadian 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. At the same event he condemned Iran's attack on U.S. bases in Iraq.
The following day, 10 January 2020, Mr Trudeau suggested the aircraft had been brought down by an Iranian missile. Iranian authorities rejected that theory. The head of Iran's civil aviation authority said he was certain the plane had not been hit by a missile and continued to attribute the crash to mechanical failure.
Tehran changes its account
The position shifted on 11 January 2020. Iran's president officially acknowledged that the country's armed forces had mistakenly shot the aircraft down with a missile near Tehran. That statement replaced the earlier explanation of mechanical failure.
The sequence from 9 to 11 January 2020 therefore ran from a warning against hasty conclusions, through a public suggestion of a missile strike and an Iranian denial, to an official admission of responsibility. By 13 January 2020, the question was no longer what had brought the aircraft down, but what would follow from Iran's own acknowledgement.
