13 Years Prison For Iranian Found Guilty Of Downing Ukrainian Boeing 737

The sentencing comes over three years after the Boeing 737 was mistakenly shot down, killing all 176 people onboard.


Photo: M101Studio | Shutterstock

A total of ten Iranian army personnel have been jailed for their role in shooting down a passenger aircraft in January 2020. Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was shot minutes after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA). The Boeing 737-800 subsequently crashed, killing all 176 people onboard.

Court documents said that the unit commander had "mistaken the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 for a cruise missile and hit it with two missiles in contravention of the commanding center's order and without obtaining the necessary permit."

The court went on to acknowledge that the primary defendant's behavior had been out of "ignorance," and that they had "not intended to shoot down a passenger plane." He was subsequently sentenced to 13 years in prison, made up of three years for having committed what the court described as "quasi-intentional homicide," and ten years for having disobeyed orders.

Nine other members of the Iranian army were also found guilty of wrongdoing which led to the tragedy on January 8th, 2020, and were each sentenced to between one and three years in prison.

At first, Iran's armed forces shunned any responsibility for the downing of flight PS752. However, it later emerged that the aircraft had been mistaken for a US missile and was shot down, against a backdrop of heightened tensions between the two countries.

Ruling rejected by the victims' families

There were 167 passengers and nine crew members onboard. As part of the ruling, the family of each victim will receive USD 150,000 in compensation. However, the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims has made clear that it does not recognize the court's legitimacy. The group said,

"This court did not prosecute the commanders and main perpetrators of this crime, introduced 10 accused low-ranking officers with total obscurity of their backgrounds and identities, held sessions in private, flouted the families who attended the hearings, and ultimately issued a sham ruling to end this show in keeping with their predetermined scenario without conducting any full, impartial investigation."

Flight PS752

Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was a scheduled service from Tehran (IKA) to the carrier's hub at Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport (KPB). The Boeing 737-800, registered as UR-PSR, had been delivered to the airline in July 2016, making it just over 3.5 years old at the time of the incident. Today, the airline has four Boeing 737-800s in its fleet, each seating a total of 186 passengers in an all-economy configuration.

Of the 176 passengers onboard, 138 were bound for Canada, with a connection in Kyiv. Many of them were Iranian Canadian students and academics heading back across the Atlantic after the winter break.

The downing of flight PS752 became the second-deadliest Boeing 737 incident in history, after Lion Air flight JT610 - the Boeing 737 MAX that crashed in October 2018, killing all 189 people onboard.