Wednesday January 9, 2020 ~ NATIONAL
~ West Shore Voice News
Today Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Canadians that the Ukrainian Airlines plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from the Tehran airport in Iran was hit by a ground-to-air missile.
The Canadian government had received this intelligence from the United States military.
Whether or not the strike was intentional and/or related to the US-directed killing of an Iranian top general several days ago (which was responded to by Iran with a strike on US/NATO military bases in Iraq) were not confirmed by the Prime Minister.
However, Trudeau indicated in both today’s and yesterday’s media conferences that the US has used its own intelligence and has made its own decisions about actions it takes or does not take regarding Iran.
On board Flight 752 which crashed two days ago were 176 people (nine of them crew), and of those, 63 were Canadians — many of whom were part of the Iranian Canadian communities of Edmonton and Toronto. There were also some international students on the flight, affiliated with as many as 11 post-secondary institutions across Canada (including UBC and UVic). Twenty-four of the deceased were children.
The majority of passengers were Iranian (many of them with dual-citizenship, including Canadian). A connecting flight to Canada yesterday landed in Toronto January 8 with 138 seats empty (tickets were held by persons who died in the Flight 752 crash).
According to other news reports today, the ground area at the crash site has begun to be bulldozed, and also the Iranians have not yet agreed to share the data from the two black boxes from the flight (cockpit audio, and flight data).
Canada appears to be continuing to exercise restraint with regard to US relations in this matter. Comments from US President Donald Trump include that Iran is a ‘rough neighbourhood’, perhaps implying that civilian travel is not appropriate.
Canada presently does not have formal diplomatic relations with Iran (which were ended in 2012 under then Prime Minister Stephen Harper and despite efforts by the Trudeau government since 2015 have not been reestablished).
Today it is now known that 14 people with ties to BC are confirmed dead in the Flight 752 plane crash. According to CBC News, those persons were:
- Delaram Dadashnejad: An international student studying at Langara College.
- Ardalan Ebnoddin Hamidi, Niloofar Razzaghi, and Kamyar Ebnoddin Hamidi: A husband, wife and their son from Port Coquitlam, B.C.
- Hossein (Daniel) Saket and Fatemeh (Faye) Kazerani: A couple from North Vancouver.
- Ayeshe Pourghaderi and Fatemah Pasavand: A mother and daughter from North Vancouver.
- Naser Pourshabanoshibi and Firouzeh Madani: A couple from North Vancouver.
- Mohammadhossein Asadi Lari and Zeynab Asadi Lari: Siblings and alumni of the University of British Columbia (UBC).
- Mehran Abtahi: A postdoctoral fellow at UBC.
- Roja Omidbakhsh: A student at the University of Victoria.