The Iranian Government, on the 11th of January, admitted to its mistake of shooting down the Ukrainian aircraft which crashed on the 8th of January with a missile.
The United States (U.S.,) made Boeing 737-800 crashed while taking off from Tehran, Iran. Initially, the Iranian Government claimed the incident was caused due to a technical glitch and not due to a missile launched by the Government. The plane crash, which took place just hours after the Iranian Government attacked 2 air bases of the United States in the Green Zone, western Baghdad, with missiles, killed as many as 176 passengers on board. The victims included 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, 4 Afghans, 3 Germans and 3 British nationals.
On the 11th of January, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Foreign Minister of Iran, condemned the deaths and said the plane was shot down unintentionally and was due to human error. The military mistook the aircraft for a cruise missile during the extremely tense situation and shot it down.
Mr. Zarif took to Twitter and said, “Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster (sic.)”
He further added, “Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations (sic.)”
The Iranian Government learnt about human error being the cause after a National Security Council meeting ended.
Both the Iranian Armed Forces and Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, issued separate statements admitting to the mistake which led to the death of 176 people.
