TEHRAN, Iran, Jan.11
Trend:
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called for honest and transparent display of information to people over unintentional human error that caused the crash of the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane, Trend reports citing Fars News Agency.
Khamenei ordered urgency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council and reviewing the issue of the country's anti-missile system that eventually shot down the plane.
Following the investigation, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran released a statement saying that the Ukrainian aircraft was unintentionally shot down by Iran, due to a human error.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani expressed regret over the tragic incident.
"Iran's armed forces were on alert after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the US threats, so an unfortunate human error led to huge tragedy and innocent people have died," said Rouhani.
A Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane with 167 passengers (including Iranian and foreign citizens) and 9 crew members on board crashed Jan. 8, after taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran.
The plane was heading for Kyiv, Ukraine's capital. The plane took off at 06:12 (GMT+3:30), and at 06:18, it lost connection with the dispatcher center. The plane crashed at 6:22.