Victims’ loved ones tell of excitement and last goodbyes ahead of takeoff to Kyiv

Mohsen Ahmadipour
arrived early with his wife for their Jan. 8 flight from Tehrans international airport to Kyiv, eager to start a new life together. Mr. Ahmadipour, a 38-year-old graduate student, had flown to Iran to visit family and then return to Canada with his wife, Rouja Azadian. Joining Mohsen for his second semester in Ottawa and nervous about facing the cold weather for the first time, Rouja was wearing the winter jacket he had brought her. But she had forgotten to bring her favorite socks.After they had waited for more than two hours to check in, Mr. Ahmadipour learned he had unwittingly canceled his own tickets for their flights to Kyiv and onward to Canada when he changed his original flight to Iran.He tried to buy a new seat, but was told there wasnt enough time before the scheduled 5:15 a.m. departure.
Do you want me to cancel the flight and stay? Ms. Azadian asked him.
Mr. Ahmadipour urged her to go on alone. A friend would meet her at the airport in Ottawa, he said. You are strong enough, he told his wife.
When Ms. Azadian got to the passport check, the couple kissed and said goodbye. I was so sad and worried about her, recalled Mr. Ahmadipour.
Earlier that morning, Iran had attacked U.S. forces at two bases in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of an Iranian general, a developing conflict that showed no sign of abating. Iranian forces were on high alert.
At the airport, however, it was business as usual. Mr. Ahmadipour and others reasoned it was safe to fly if Iranian officials were allowing commercial flights to depart.
Hours later, Irans armed forces fired surface-to-air missiles at Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, bringing down the plane and killing everyone on board. Families, newlyweds and students at universities in Canada, Britain and Iran were among the 176 people who perished. Around 140 were headed for connecting flights to Canada.
Eight flights took off from Imam Khomeini airport between Irans missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq at 2 a.m. and the departure of Flight 752, including one scheduled for the same time as the Ukrainian airliner at 5:15 a.m., according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking site. The Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. civil aviation regulator, had restricted all U.S. commercial flights from flying over Iran, Iraq and the Persian Gulf because of the military activity.
In the aftermath of the crash, the Iranian military said it had asked to close the skies. It isnt clear why that request wasnt heeded.
That morning,
Arvin Morattab
and his wife
Aida Farzaneh
were also waiting to board Flight 752. The Iranian-born couple had been on vacation and were returning to Montreal, where they had lived together since 2012. They were set to earn permanent residency once they touched down in Canada, a first step toward becoming citizens.
At the airport, with 90 minutes to go until the scheduled departure, Mr. Morattab got a call from his twin brother, who was fretting about the Iranian strikes.
This is almost a war,
Armin Morattab,
who also lived in Montreal, told Arvin. He advised them to find a place to shelter in the airport in case it was attacked by U.S. forces.
Arvin told his brother that nobody at the airport was talking about the strikes, and that people around him seemed happy. Were going to get back soon, he assured his twin.
Passengers soon began boarding Flight 752, but it was delayed. The jet was overloaded.
Capt. Volodymyr Gaponenko
decided to unload about 80 passenger bags, according to Ukrainian officials.
Capt. Gaponenko, a father of two, was an experienced pilot with 11,600 hours on the Boeing 737. His wife, Kateryna, said she was concerned about this particular journey, however, because of the tensions between Iran and the U.S.
A day earlier in Kyiv, Ms. Gaponenko had urged her husband to phone his bosses and ask them to assign another pilot for his flights to Tehran and back. The couple discussed how dangerous it was to fly to Tehran at that moment, she said.
Capt. Gaponenko insisted on flying. If not me, then no one else, she said he told her, in their last conversation.
As Flight 752 waited on the tarmac, passengers
Saeed Tahmasebi,
35, and his new wife
Niloofar Ebrahim,
34, waited for takeoff. The couple, both living in London, had flown to Iran for a wedding party with family on Dec. 19. They carried pictures of the ceremony in carry-on luggage, said Ms. Ebrahims sister, Navaz.
They called her sister and her husband in Dallas from their seats to tell them they were about to depart on their way back to the U.K., Navaz Ebrahim said. The couple in Texas hadnt been able to attend the event in Iran and were getting regular updates on the trip.
Dont stress too much when you open the news, Niloofar told them, alluding to the Iranian strikes, according to Navaz. Well be fine.
In another row, 37-year-old
Sahar Haghjoo
snapped a selfie with her 8-year-old daughter, Elsa.
After leaving Iran with her family in 1987, Ms. Haghjoo had settled in Toronto, where she worked in recent years with refugees and new immigrants at the Young Womens Christian Association. She had been in Iran visiting family with her husband, who had returned to Canada earlier.
She sent the photo to her father,
Habib Haghjoo,
at 5:19 a.m. Ms. Haghjoo is seen leaning close to her daughter as they both smile, the blue seats of Ukraine International Airlines behind them.
Mr. Haghjoo responded with a Persian word that means my very dear sweetheart. His daughter responded with an emoji of a face blowing a kiss.
Just before 6:13 a.m., nearly an hour after its scheduled departure, Flight 752 began taxiing to the runway.
Take off! Capt. Gaponenko told Iranian air-traffic control as he lifted the jet off the ground, according to a Ukraine International Airlines representative aware of the details of the cockpit voice recording.
Ms. Azadian sent a message to her husband saying they had started to fly. He sent a message back in WhatsApp with emoji kisses.
Capt. Gaponenko began climbing to 8,000 feet. The satellite-transmission network on the plane that regularly streams out operating data showed everything was normal. Thrust, trajectory, speed and flight-control features were working as expected, according to U.S. aviation officials.
The pilots next instructions from the cockpit could be heard on the flight recording: Gain height and turn, he said, according to
Ihor Sosnovsky,
Ukraine International Airlines vice president of operations. That was the usual maneuver due to Tehrans mountainous terrain, airline officials said.
Those would be the last words the outside world heard from Capt. Gaponenko.
Iranian officials said a junior officer with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps mistook Flight 752 for an enemy aircraft. A surface-to-air missile was fired.
A surveillance video from the ground captured the fireball at the moment of impact. About 30 seconds later, another missile struck the jet, sending it to the ground in flames.
At 6:18 a.m., on a clear morning, debris from the airliner scattered across houses, fields and a soccer pitch.
About 30 minutes later, Mr. Ahmadipour returned home from the airport with his wifes parents. At 7 a.m., he heard a scream. His in-laws were watching the first news reports of the crash on television.
They raced in a taxi back to the airport. As they drove, Mr. Ahmadipour searched for more information about the crash online. He saw a photo and was sure there were no survivors.
He sent a message to his friend in Ottawa. Rojas flight crashed, he wrote.
In Montreal, Armin Morattab had calmed down about the danger of his twin brother traveling through what had felt like an impending war. President Trump had said the White House wouldnt retaliate against Iran for the strikes in Iraq.
Then Mr. Morattab saw reports of a Ukrainian airliner crash. He called his father, who had dropped Arvin and Aida at the airport.
Is it true what we are hearing? Armin Morattab asked his father.
Yes, this is true, his father cried. Unfortunately they were among the passengers.
In Kyiv, Ms. Gaponenko read the news online and understood her husband likely perished. She went to the pharmacy and asked for the most powerful sedative, and then took their daughters to school.
In Dallas, Navaz Ebrahim saw reports on her Facebook feed of a crash that had killed all on board. She called her mother, Shahin, in northern Tehran to ask for the number of her sisters flight.
What happened? her mother asked her. Ms. Ebrahim told her.
She was screaming, Ms. Ebrahim said of her mother. I dont know how long it took her. But she finally managed to find the flight number. And she said thats the flight.
We were all screaming after that, she said.
Iranian officials initially blamed the crash on technical failure. Three days later, after Western aviation experts and foreign governments cast doubt on Tehrans version of events, Irans military disclosed it had unintentionally shot down Flight 752. Thousands of Iranians took to the streets, with protesters accusing their leadership of lying.
As pictures of the crash were shared on social media, Ms. Ebrahim spotted one in which, on the ground beside a piece of luggage, a photograph could be seen with an image of her parents at her sisters wedding party.
Her family in Tehran is waiting for remains to bury, she said.
On Sunday, authorities took blood from Mr. Haghjoos son-in-law in Iran, and used his DNA to identify eight-year-old Elsa. From Elsa they identified her mother, Sahar Haghjoo. The family has asked for the remains to be returned to Canada.
The remains of Mr. Morattab and his wife were returned to their parents, who live in western Iran, where they were buried. His brother watched the burial over WhatsApp from Montreal.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian air force flew the bodies of the 11 Ukrainians on boardnine crew and two passengersback to Kyiv.
Relatives of the victims and their airline colleagues stood on the tarmac clutching flowers, as an honor guard loaded the coffins onto hearses. The coffins were draped in the yellow-and-blue flag of Ukraine. Some airline pilots fell to one knee to honor the victims.
Capt.
Sergii Poloz,
who had flown with Capt. Gaponenko, laid red roses on the coffins of his colleagues.
We lost our great people, he said.
A Ukraine-bound plane crashed after taking off from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board. The U.S. and its allies believe Iran downed the aircraftpossibly by accidentwhich Iran denies. Photo: Rouzbeh Fouladi/Zuma Press
—Aresu Eqbali in Tehran and Andy Pasztor in Los Angeles contributed to this article.
Write to Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com, Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com and Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com
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