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What Iran's admission on Flight 752 set in motion
Summary
A look back at the days after the Ukrainian airliner was shot down near Tehran, from Iranian denials to an admission and street protests.
What did the world know about the downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by 16 January 2020, and how quickly had Iran's official line changed? The answer, as reported at the time, was that it had reversed within days.
The flight was a scheduled service from Tehran to Kyiv. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after takeoff, killing all 176 people aboard.
From denial to admission
On 10 January 2020, Iranian authorities rejected the suggestion that a missile had brought the plane down. That suggestion had come from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Iran's civil aviation chief said he was certain no missile had hit the aircraft and continued to attribute the crash to mechanical failure.
The position did not hold for long. On 11 January 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted that it had mistakenly shot down the aircraft as it took off from Tehran. Iran's president also formally acknowledged that the country's armed forces had erroneously hit the Ukrainian plane with a missile near the capital.
Vigils turn to protests
The admission was followed by public anger inside Iran. Vigils held for the victims turned into protests on 11 January 2020. According to videos posted on Twitter, hundreds of protesters in Tehran called for the resignation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A diplomatic incident
The same day, the British ambassador to Iran, Robert Macaire, was arrested during the unrest. According to the BBC, he had attended a vigil and then got a haircut. Tasnim News Agency reported that he was detained on suspicion of organising, provoking and directing radical actions. UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the arrest was a flagrant violation of international law. Macaire was released more than an hour later.
Why the sequence mattered
Within about three days, the account of the crash had moved from a claimed mechanical fault to an acknowledged missile strike by Iran's own forces. The admission was followed within hours by street protests and a diplomatic dispute involving a Western envoy. For Ukraine, whose national carrier operated the flight and whose capital was the destination, the central fact was the loss of all 176 people on board.
