This archive report was first published on 11 January 2020.
On January 11, 2020, Ukraine International Airlines officials pushed back forcefully on the Iranian government's assertion that the pilots shared blame for flying off route in the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752.
According to the airline's president, Yevhenii Dykhne, the crew was made up of some of the airline's most experienced pilots, and the Boeing 737-800 was less than four years old.
"We never thought for a second that our crew and our plane could have been the reason for this terrible, horrific aviation catastrophe," Dykhne said in a Facebook post after Iran's admission.
"These were our best young men and women. The best," he added.
Iran's assertion that the pilots shared blame for flying off route was met with strong denial from the airline's officials in Kyiv.
"Even in the statement of Iran there is a hint that our crew was acting independently, or that it could act differently," the airline's director, Yevhenii Dykhne, said.
"Unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that our plane was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This could have been any plane," he added.
The crew received no warning before leaving Tehran, and the plane took off as Ukrainian flights from Iran had dozens of times before, following the same departure routes as airliners leaving that night, according to Igor Sosnovsky, the airline's vice president for flight operations.
