Flight 752: where the inquiry stood on 15 January 2020

What did the world know about the destruction of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by 15 January 2020? The answer had changed sharply within a week, as Iran moved from denying a missile strike to accepting responsibility.

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 on board.

From denial to admission

On 9 January 2020, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a news conference that it was too early to draw definitive conclusions that the downing was an act of war. He also condemned Iran's attack on U.S. bases in Iraq.

On 10 January 2020, after Trudeau suggested the aircraft had been brought down by an Iranian missile, Iranian authorities rejected the theory. The country's civil aviation chief said he was certain the plane had not been hit by a missile, and he maintained that the cause was mechanical failure.

That position did not last. On 11 January 2020, Iran's president officially acknowledged that the country's armed forces had mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian airliner with a missile near Tehran.

What the sequence showed

The three days of reporting set out a clear order of events. A Western leader cautioned against sweeping conclusions while pointing to a possible missile strike. Iranian officials then insisted on a technical explanation. Within a day, the head of state reversed that line and described the shooting-down as an error by the armed forces.

By 15 January 2020, the question was therefore no longer whether a missile had struck the aircraft, but what would follow from Iran's own admission. Those next steps lay ahead, and the reports from 9 to 11 January 2020 show only how quickly the official account changed.