A Ukrainian airliner crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran on Wednesday killing all 176 people on board, mainly Iranians and Canadians.
Search-and-rescue teams were combing through the smoking wreckage of the Boeing 737 flight from Tehran to Kiev but officials said there was no hope of finding anyone alive.
According to a report by AFP, the vast majority of the passengers on the Ukraine international airline’s flight was non-Ukrainians, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians, officials said.
The crash occurred with tensions high in the middle east and shortly after Tehran launched missiles at bases in Iraq housing US troops.
But there was no immediate indication of foul play and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelinsky warned against “speculating” on the cause of the disaster.
The US aviation authority said it had banned US-registered carriers from flying over Iraq, Iran and the Gulf, and airlines including Lufthansa and Air France suspended flights through Iraqi and Iranian airspace.
