On January 8, 2020, a Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) Boeing 737-800 crashed just 5 minutes after take-off. The flight was a scheduled international passenger flight from Teheran (Iran) to Kyiv (Ukraine). All 176 passengers and crew on board were killed (82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedish, 4 Afghani, 3 Germans, 3 British).
According to Flightradar24 data (flightradar24.com), the aircraft climbed normally, with absolutely consistent vertical speed and altitude values, when suddenly the data transfer was shut down at an altitude of approximately 7925 ft (2416 m). The airport itself is 3,305 ft (1,007 m) above sea level, which would give an altitude of 4,620 ft (1,410 m) above ground level. The aircraft crashed into the terrain located just 15 km north of the airport.
The aircraft and crew
The plane involved in the crash was just 3 years old, with no incidents recorded prior to the crash. The day before the aircraft landed and took off from Milan back to Kyiv, without any anomalies recorded. It had its last scheduled maintenance on January 6th, 2020, 2 days before the accident. Ukraine International Airlines also posted on Facebook some information about the crew, stating that with due allowance for the complexity and duration of the flight, the aircraft’s crew was augmented and given the crew’s experience, error probability is minimal, even not considering such a chance. The airline reported the following details:
"Flight crew comprised three pilots:
· Captain Volodymyr Gaponenko (11600 hours on Boeing 737 aircraft including 5500 hours as captain);
· Instructor pilot Oleksiy Naumkin (12000 hours on Boeing 737 aircraft including 6600 hours as captain);
· First officer Serhii Khomenko (7600 hours on Boeing 737 aircraft). Cabin crew comprised six flight attendants:
· Ihor Matkov, chief flight attendant;
· Kateryna Statnik;
· Mariia Mykytiuk;
· Valeriia Ovcharuk;
· Yuliia Solohub;
· Denys Lykhno."
The statements and the diplomatic tension
The Iranian military forces, just a few hours before the crash, shared a video online of a dozen missiles launched at U.S. military bases in Iraq, which killed and injured at least 80 U.S. personnel according to The Guardian.
A few hours after the crash, Iranian media and the Ukrainian embassy in Iran stated that a technical failure was suspected, but later the embassy withdrew the statement. Shortly after, the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) said that there was no evidence of technical issues and that they received no emergency message from the aircraft before the crash.
A video posted online suggested that the aircraft was on fire when it began to dive, with some of its parts breaking up in mid-air. It then crashed and exploded. Clearly, the aircraft was burning before the crash, leading to speculation of a possible accidental shooting-down in flight.
It was reported that the aircraft's black boxes (the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder) had been recovered. Iran has said it will not hand over the black boxes either to the aircraft’s manufacturer (Boeing) or US aviation authorities (FAA or NTSB).
The black boxes are reported by Iranian investigators to have been damaged and some parts of their memory were lost. Of course, the causes will be found when a full analysis of the flight data and wreckage of the airplane is conducted.
The engine failure hypothesis
The first hypothesis was an engine failure. If we look at the flight data, the crew never changed their transponder squawk code to signal an emergency during and there wasn't an RTO procedure (Rejected Take-Off) for sure, because the plane took off with no problems and started its climb. In 2018, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 flying from New York to Dallas suffered an uncontained engine failure on its left engine during climb resulting in a puncture to the left side of the fuselage causing a loss of cabin pressure and damage to the wing and empennage.
However, the aircraft diverted to Philadelphia International Airport, for a safe landing, but unfortunately, there was one fatality. This shows us that a plane is designed to fly with an inoperative engine and can land safely, without crashing.
The shooting-down hypothesis
Iran CAO announced that the aircraft "turned right following a problem and was headed back to the airport" before it crashed. The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine is examining possible causes, "including an anti-aircraft missile strike, a mid-air collision, an engine explosion or an explosion inside the plane carried out by a terrorist". That wouldn't be the first time in civil aviation history, that an airliner is shot down. On 17 July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was hit by a Soviet-made Buk surface-to-air missile. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed, including 80 children. Joint Investigation Team claimed the missile was operated by Russian backed rebels near Donetsk, Ukraine during the Battle in Shakhtarsk Raion.
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Also, on 27 June 1980, an Itavia McDonnell Douglas DC-9 passenger jet en route from Bologna to Palermo, Italy, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica, killing all 81 people on board.
The analogy between the UIA 737-800 and the Itavia DC-9
As a precondition, it's easy to understand why in civil aviation is never a good choice to make assumptions or elaborations before the full investigations are carried out. Almost all the time, these guesses are wrong when the truth is discovered. However, it is necessary to consider all the possible scenarios and, as normally done, go back in time and see if a similar accident had been taken place. A possible similar scenario is the disaster occurred involving Itavia Flight 870 in 1980.
On 27 June 1980 at 20:08 local time, the plane departed with a delay of one hour and 53 minutes from Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport for a scheduled service to Palermo Punta Raisi Airport. Contact was lost shortly after the last message from the aircraft was received at 20:37, giving its position over the Tyrrhenian Sea near the island of Ustica, about 120 km (70 mi) southwest of Naples. At 20:59, the aircraft broke-apart in mid-air and crashed.
96% of the wreckage was recovered from the seabed at a depth of 3700mand after a full analysis, the Italian judiciary had stated that this action was primarily an act of war, from one state against another, and the Itavia DC-9 was shot down by a missile fired by a supersonic military plane. A hypothesis that was later confirmed, first suggested by NTSB expert John Macidull.
Major sources in the Italian media have alleged that the aircraft was shot down during a fight involving Libyan, United States and French fighters in an assassination attempt of an important Libyan politician, perhaps even Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, who was flying in the same airspace that evening.
Anyways, several conspiracy theories explaining the disaster persist until today, because after 40 years the real executors are unknown and since investigations were hampered, Italians used the term "muro di gomma" (literally, "a rubber wall"), meaning that there was no cooperation whatsoever between nations to know the real truth and the real reasons of the crash.
At the time of writing, the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO) still refuses to give the black boxes to Boeing, meaning that right now, because of the political tensions, we have to wait. Despite the difficult international diplomatic situation, it is useful to know the real causes of the crash to avoid fatal technical failures to improve safety standards in civil aviation.
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