Europeans should pay compensation for downed Ukrainian plane: Iran Central Insurance

The president of the Central Insurance of Iran says a Ukrainian passenger plane that was accidentally downed near Tehran in early January was insured by European firms and they should pay compensation for it.

According to Press TV, Gholamreza Soleimani said in a virtual meeting with reporters on Monday"This plane was insured by insurance firms in Ukraine and European reinsurance companies, and this issue has nothing to do with Iranian [insurance] companies."

"If any compensation is to be paid in this regard, it should be made by [those European] companies that had insured this plane," he added.

With 167 passengers and nine crewmembers on board, Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 crashed outside Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on January 8, moments after takeoff.

Iranian authorities acknowledged that the plane had been downed due to human error at a time when Iran's air defenses were on high alert due to increased hostile American aerial activity in the aftermath of Iran's missile strike on an Iraqi military base, which houses US-led coalition forces in the Arab country.

The missile strike came after terrorist American forces assassinated Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the Commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), along with his companions, outside Baghdad International Airport on direct order from US President Donald Trump.

Canada's Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said on July 19 that the black box of the Ukrainian plane had arrived in France for analysis.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mohsen Baharvand had said a day earlier that the black boxes had been sent to Paris for analysis. “The black boxes were transported to Paris yesterday by officials of the Civil Aviation Authority and a judge,” he said.

In a statement issued on July 12, the Civil Aviation Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CAO.IRI) said the mismanagement of an air defense unit’s radar system by its operator was the key "human error" that led to the accidental downing of the passenger plane.

The organization said a failure in the mobile air defense system occurred due to a human error in following the procedure for aligning the radar, causing a "107-degree error" in the system.

It also noted that due to radar misalignment, the air defense unit's operator misidentified the passenger plane as a target, which was approaching Tehran from southwest.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on June 22 that the Islamic Republic had informed Ukraine that Tehran was ready to settle all legal issues pertaining to the tragic incident, establish a procedure for compensating the families of victims and reimbursing the Ukrainian airline for the incident.

ME