Ekaterina Gaponenko believes the UIA accident near Tehran was not accidental

The widow of the deceased commander of the UIA plane, which was shot down near Tehran in January 2020, is outraged by the joint statement by the Foreign Ministries of Ukraine and Iran that the plane was accidentally shot down.

Ekaterina Gaponenko believes that this wording may affect the amount of compensation to the families of the victims, as well as prevent the granting of the titles of Hero of Ukraine to the victims of the disaster.

This was reported by the “Strana” correspondent on Monday, October 19.

“Today, in the morning edition of Suspilny Radio, I heard something that angered me. The Ukrainian delegation that went to Iran agreed with the wording that the plane was shot down by mistake, that is, by accident. This wording deprives us of hopes of fair compensation and chances of the dead being awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. The Iranian side has no right to submit such wording, and our delegation has no right to agree, especially since the investigation has not yet it’s over, the black boxes have not yet been deciphered and they have already decided it was a mistake, and the plane was shot down not on purpose “, – the pilot’s widow is outraged.

According to her, not even before the official completion of the investigation can it be said that the Iranians shot down the plane by mistake.

“This is very dangerous, such wording excludes intention. This will affect both compensation and the award of the title of Hero of Ukraine to the dead.

Gaponeko did not comment on the information that Tehran and Kiev had agreed to pay all relatives of the victims the same compensation. According to her, the question of the amount of the payments has not yet been raised.

“The point is not the amount of compensation, but if it will be and within what procedures. If we, as a country, agree that it was an accident, you understand that we will sign the verdict ourselves,” says Gaponenko.

Recall that on the morning of January 8, 2020, a Ukrainian plane crashed in Iran. All passengers and crew were killed. The accident was the highest number of fatalities in the history of Ukrainian aviation and the first in the history of the UIA. It was also one of the 50 largest accidents in aviation history.

Previously, Iranian experts decoded some of the information in the “black boxes” of the downed UIA plane.

Later in Iran, technical problems were called the cause of the disaster, but Tehran later admitted that the plane was shot down by the military, “due to human error.”