Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) filed a lawsuit in the Ontario Supreme Court, in Canada, against the Islamic Republic of Iran overflight PS752, which was shot down in 2020.
The lawsuit, which was seen by Radio Farda on July 7, 2022, was filed by Ukraine’s largest airline in January 2022. The airline’s lawsuit is separate to the legal action taken by families of the survivors of the downed Ukrainian plane in Tehran.
The official complaint, submitted by the airline to the Ontario Supreme Court of Justice, lists two parties – the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) – as the two defendants of the case. With the move, Ukraine International Airlines demands compensation from Iran.
At the beginning of January 2022, the court awarded more than $107 million to the families of six victims who died in the accident, after it found the downing of the plane was an intentional terrorist act perpetrated by Iran and the IRGC.
The fatal accident happened on January 8, 2022, shortly after the UIA Boeing 737-800 aircraft, registered UR-PSR, took off from Tehran (THR) on an international flight to Kyiv (KBP). However, the aircraft crashed in the territory of Iran killing all 167 passengers and nine crew members on the flight. Investigators later found out that most of the victims were Iran citizens and Canadians, but there were also 11 Ukraine passport holders.
An operator of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), stationed in Bid Kaneh, was found to have fired two missiles from a Tor-M1 surface-to-air system, which brought down the aircraft. The Civil Aviation Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran admitted that a mistake was made while setting up the radar of the missile system after a relocation. As a result, Flight PS752’s path was shown as heading straight for Tehran, rather than away from the city, at a time when the country’s air defense was on high alert.