Front Burner - Tragedy in Iran: Canadians mourn enormous loss of life in jet crash

Episode Date: January 9, 2020

As the world sat on edge Tuesday night, fearful that increasing violence and belligerence between the U.S. and Iran could escalate into war, tragedy struck. But not the tragedy anyone was expecting. In an instant, 176 lives were lost when a Ukrainian International Airlines flight crashed just outside of Tehran, less than two minutes after takeoff. Sixty-three of those victims were Canadian. Today, on Front Burner, we hear from victims' loved ones from across the country and learn more about what might have caused the plane to go down.

This is a CBC Podcast. There is some major breaking news right now. A number of missiles have been launched from Iran into Iraq. Two targets hosting US military and coalition forces. As the world sat on edge Tuesday night, fearful that missile strikes launched by Iran at the U.S. and Iraq would escalate to wider violence, to a war, to something close to it. Tragedy struck, but not the tragedy anyone was expecting. There are reports tonight that a Ukrainian airliner with at least 170 people on board crashed near Tehran right after takeoff. The plane turned into a fireball before crashing.

Recovery crews stepping over smouldering aircraft parts after a futile search for life. Now we're being told from the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs that actually 63 people were Canadian. 176 lives gone in an instant, and countless others changed forever. Today, I'm speaking to some of those people. I'm Jamie Poisson. This is FrontBurner. On Wednesday evening, we arrived at this memorial at a downtown apartment building in Toronto. The party room is filled with people, easily 100 people.

And they're all here to mourn the crash victims, including many victims with ties to the University of Toronto's Iranian community. So many of the dead in this crash are university students from U of T, but also from Western, Waterloo, Guelph, UBC, the University of Alberta. UBC, the University of Alberta. At this memorial, people are praying on mats, reading passages from the Quran, telling stories about their friends,

crying. There's a table at the front. It's filled with white carnations and lit candles. A group of women hurries to secure these candles with aluminum foil. On this table, there are seven photographs, smiling faces, all young adults. All dead. Alnaz Morshedi lost her best friend, Zainab Asadilari, in the crash. My name's Jamie. What's your name? Hi, I'm Alnaz.

I don't know. What can I tell about her? She was full of dreams. Zainab died along with her brother, Mohamed Asadilari. They are both former UBC students. She was studying to be a doctor in Toronto. He was a PhD candidate who co-founded a STEM fellowship. We crouched down in the hallway to talk. She was just graduating from U of T this semester. She studied so hard to become a doctor and as soon as she was getting her dream, she's gone. And I don't know, she was, she always talked about the things that she didn't have, she didn't have the time to do. Like what?

She wanted to go for doctors without border. She wanted to go to Africa, to different countries to help people. She said that she always studied. She was studying all the time to become a doctor that she didn't leave. She wanted to have fun. She wanted to fall in love. She was always worried about her little sister in Iran, that she's alone, she's only 10, and now they're both gone.

Is that why she went back to Iran to visit her little sister? Yeah, they were back to visit their families. All of the students there, they were back to visit their families in the Christmas time. And Zainab and Muhammad Hussain, they had a little sister. They were always worried about her, what happened when we were away from her. And she doesn't have both of them anymore. And Muhammad Hussain, Muhammad Hussain Asadilari. This is her brother.

Yes. Hussain's brother. He was unique. Tell me about him. He was a social entrepreneur. He was a doctor and a business man. He wanted to make a better world with medical applications. And he had two startups in the U of D.

He was a TED Talker. He was one of the best of us. All of them are best of us. All the students who come here, they come with so many dreams. They come from best universities. They studied so hard. They come here. They go through so many hardships because of immigration and they find a job and they say, now suddenly I wanted to live my dreams. And they're gone. Tell me what their life was like here in Canada. I don't know.

With you, with all their friends. Mohamed Hussain and Zainab, they were alone here for seven years. Muhammad Hussein and Zainab, they were alone here for seven years. They grew up alone after grade 12 because they wanted to reach their dreams. Because they went to school here. Yeah, they wanted to go to school here, and they wanted to be doctors here. So they come here when they were really young, and they only have each other here. Zainab, I only know her for one year, but she was my best friend. She was so kind that sometimes I was thinking with myself that, oh my god, that's so weird. I don't even know her for

so long, but she's the one I want to tell everything about her. And before going to meet tonight, she was going to land and we were going to meet tonight. And she wanted to tell me the good news from Tehran that I don't know anymore. What was it? I think they all have a better place now. We are in the hardship, but they have a better place. And I just try to pray for them and pray for their families who were alone in Iran. And they'd already been away from their children for so many years, and

now they lost them. When was the last time that you talked to Zainab? One hour before she got into the flight, she bringing me a package. So I was talking to her and I was saying, I'm sorry, I make your baggage heavy. And when we were seeing the news, we were seeing their clothes, the clothes that we know that was theirs.

I imagine that you and your friends and your family had already been watching the political situation in Iran, and now to have this happen on top of it, what has that been like? I remember I came home last night and I was checking the news constantly every second so be sure that there is no going to be any war because we also have families there.

And I remember at 11.30 we were like, because there were no people died in the attack, so there might not be any war. So we were kind of happy, and I texted Zaina, tell me as soon as you get to the border, because we heard about so many people that they stopped them in the border between Canada and U.S. So we weren't sure if they can get in if there is a war.

And I was texting her, just let me know when you pass the border. And as soon as I wanted to go up and rest my mind, because there was no war anymore, we heard about plane crash. And when did you know that Zainab and her brother were on this plane? I knew she was coming this morning, but I wasn't sure that's her plane. I was texting her that please tell me I don't I can't sleep until please tell me that you're safe please me tell me that you're on not that plane and because she was she was an astronaut was like maybe she's on the another plane maybe she's

on transit so I texted her brother that I'm really worried about Zeynep is was she on the same plane and now now i see the texts i send them to them which has never been seen because they were both on the plane that moment and they were gone and i i didn't want to believe it until we saw their names on the list that they were there i don't know i'm so sorry that you're going through this right now. But thanks for coming. We appreciate it because they were really good people. We should appreciate their dreams and their ambitions

and help other people here in Iran, anywhere. Other young people, cherish their dreams so that they don't go through so many hardships that they say, I have studied for so many years that I haven't lived. Young people should leave. I don't know. I just want to help other people

that they don't have any lost dreams and they are going, and they are gone. Before we got to the memorial, I spoke with Fatima al-Hassani. That's actually how we knew about the gathering. She invited us there, and so we met up. This is Muhammad, and this is Zahra. Yes. They look so happy here.

I think they've been always happy. Her friends and neighbors, Mohammed Salaleh, a student at U of T, and Zahara Hassani Sadi, also died in the crash. When was the last time you spoke with Mohammed or Zahara? Oh, actually it was just right before they leave. They gave us their plants.

They gave us their tea. They said goodbye to us. And, yeah, and before that, we went to a brunch together. And they really like the food. We plan to go there regularly together. So, yeah. You plan to go somewhere in Toronto for brunch together? Where? France. It's a great, very old restaurant, downtown Toronto, and it's

open 24-7, so it's perfect for students. All those late night studying, right? Exactly. So we went together and we really liked the food. And so you were looking forward to doing that with them when they returned. Definitely. I wonder, Fatima, if when you water the plants they left with you, if there is a memory of them that you'll be thinking of? I think it's like now that I see the plants,

I feel like it's kind of, I don't know, it represents all the kindness and generosity that they had towards us. The first memory that I remember is the fact that they were just so nice that whenever they had a yummy meal, they would share it with us. Like, they didn't even come to our home. They just sent the food to our home. So, yeah, I always think of that and the fact that they had, like, an extremely bright future in front of them. But now it's all gone. Fatima, thank you so much.

Okay, thank you so much. Of course, many, many others lost their lives. Evine Arsalanian and Hewan Malani, a couple from Ajax, Ontario, and their one-year-old daughter, Kurdia. in Iran. Everybody's scared. And you want to come back before things go worse. Siavash Ghaforiazar and Sara Mamani,

newlyweds, who studied engineering at Concordia University in Montreal. They had returned to Iran to celebrate their marriage. And we were supposed to go to airport to pick them up. Yesterday we went because they made a mistake. They told us that they will be here like yesterday.

I was a little bit worried for them. I was like, OK, I'm happy that today you are leaving the country because of all the chaos and all the mess that's happening there. Dr. Shakupi Chapanijad, an obstetrician gynecologist in Edmonton, and her two daughters, Saba Sadat, who studied medicine, and Sara, who studied clinical psychology, both at the University of Alberta. She was telling us about her plan for her kids. She was the most honestly kind person ever I have met. It's not only my loss as a friend, but it's a loss for the community. Thirty of the dead are from Edmonton.

We lost about 1% of our entire community on that flight. Many of these people were international students. They didn't have their families here. So gave up, you know, a life that they had in Iran. The people that they knew, they worked tirelessly to get to where they were. All to lose it like this, it's just, it's terrible. Arshia Abarami, a grade 12 student at a high school in Calgary, who is on the track and swim teams.

Both his parents were doctors, are doctors, and he was planning to study medicine. They were just trying to save every penny and then try to change it to dollars and send it to Canada for our share. He would be very careful spending his money because all the time he would be like, yeah, my parents are working so hard. I don't want to waste the money. Our government will continue to work closely with its partners to ensure that this crash is thoroughly investigated. Canadians have questions, and they deserve answers. There are still a lot of questions

about exactly what happened to the Ukrainian airliner that crashed shortly after takeoff in Tehran, killing everybody on board. Mary Schiavo is a pilot and former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Hi Mary, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, it's good to be with you. So according to the plane's radar data, the plane took off and climbed normally during the first two minutes of the flight, but then it stopped transmitting data. It rose to 8,000 feet and crashed very suddenly. What do you think happened here? Well that's extremely significant and a very important piece for the investigators.

If the plane had an engine problem, as Iran had initially stated, it would not climb in a normal manner. And that climb, both the altitude progression and the ground speed, were a perfectly normal takeoff. So that kind of progression does not suggest any kind of engine failure, engine problem. When you have an engine problem, you don't see the good level climb, and you see variations in the ground speed. Okay, so Ukrainian officials also said at first that it was engine failure, and then they withdrew that. If it wasn't engine failure, what could it possibly be?

What are the options here? Based on statistics on crashes I've worked in the past, when you have an in-flight breakup, which is what this appeared to be, an explosion in the air, and this debris field says the plane did not fall intact. This is a widely dispersed debris field. Okay. Statistically, it is usually a missile strike or a bomb. That's usually what it is,

really, a flight breakup. And is it possible that it's anything other than a missile strike or a bomb? Is it possible that something happened inside the airplane, some mechanical failure that caused the plane to blow up? Well, there have been some crashes where that has occurred. For example, there was a very famous one in the United States called TW800 in which the center fuel tank exploded because the temperatures were very hot and it had a wiring problem. And for a while it was considered to be a missile strike off the coast of the United States. It was not. The center fuel tank exploded. And the other one was the Trox Ocean Airlines. It was

a crash off the coast of Miami, and in that case, the wing fell off. And that was highly significant, because in that case, the plane looked great, but it hadn't had ultrasonic testing, and it hadn't had, you know, basically an x-ray of the wing, and the wing

had corroded because of overwater oceanic operations. That's a very old plane. This one, I wouldn't expect that. However, there is an airways directive on this plane for the wing attachment, but this is still a very new plane. Does this plane have a very good safety record? So this is the Boeing 737 jet, and I should clarify, it's not the 737 MAX, which was the plane involved in the Ethiopia Airlines crash and the Lion Air crash in Indonesia. What is the safety record of this plane?

It's a widely used aircraft, used all over, used in countries around the world. I mean, I've been on it many times, and it does have a good record. However, what you really need to look at is what are the warnings on the plane? As the plane gets, you know, age on it, as it has a lot of service, there have been, and this is also significant, there have been engine failures on this plane and all. But engine failures by regulation and by design are not supposed to bring down an aircraft. So even if it did have an engine problem, if indeed something with the engine brought this plane down, that's highly significant for the engine manufacturer, CFM, because our standards are that if you lose an engine, you should be able to fly on the other one. If you

have an engine fire, you should use the aircraft fire bottles to put it out and immediately return to the airport. Obviously, you call an emergency or we used to call Maydays, you declare an emergency. None of that happened here. So that steers me away from an uncontained engine failure. Okay. What are you hearing from like other pilots, other aviation experts? I know you're very plugged in here. What are people talking about? I think most people were saying, gosh, it sure looks like a missile or a bomb. But then the United States of all, it was us that kind of threw the cold water on that because the United States has announced that we were on high alert. We had our radar and eyes in the sky looking for incoming missiles.

And the United States has said we didn't see a missile headed for that plane. Right. And Western intelligence agencies, yeah, Western intelligence agencies are saying that they have no evidence to suggest that this was a missile at this time. It is possible, I suppose, you're saying that it was a bomb on the plane. And it could also be defensive fire. It's possible that someone, you know, misguided, mistakenly mistook the plane for an incoming enemy aircraft or an incoming missile or something and fired on it. You could have surface-to-air defensive weapons that would not necessarily show up as a missile. So you could have that.

And then again, we could go back to the causes in the past. You could have a fuel tank explosion. You could have a wing detachment, which I would really, I'd be surprised on a plane this young. So there have been things in the past that have brought down aircraft, but they're few and far between. Okay. So of course, I just want to be very clear for our listeners. This could have been an intentional act. It also could have been some sort of error with the plane, as we've talked about. The black boxes have been recovered by Iranian officials, although they're saying that they won't be handing them over to Boeing or the United States. Do they have a right to do that?

That was a statement by somebody obviously not familiar with in Iran with how investigations work. The black boxes are not turned over to Boeing. What happens, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization rules on how to conduct an international investigation, and these are standards put forth by the United Nations, is they go to a black box download lab. Now, obviously, the United States National Transportation Safety Board has a great download lab. So does Canada. So does France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Australia. So there are many, many choices to send this to a lab. And if you still don't trust it, there are many contractors and companies that will bring to you a portable black box download lab. So whoever said that just didn't know how investigations work.

Okay. And will the black box help us understand what happened here? Yes. If it was any kind of plane failure, the black box will have the answer. Okay. If it was an engine problem, engine failure, etc., the black box will determine that. If it was an explosive or a missile strike, the black box may not reveal that. That's why this wreckage is so highly important, and they better be testing it for explosive residue. That will yield the answer. That's what the Dutch authorities did in the shoot down of Malaysia Airlines 17. They got the explosive residue right off the aircraft wreckage.

How is this further complicated by the political situation on the ground? You know, Canada does not have diplomatic relations with Iran. Our interests are represented by Italy. Of course, the United States does not have an embassy in Tehran. Well, and again, the United Nations rules and the ICAO rules cover this if only people would follow the guidelines for conducting investigation. And politics is supposed to play no role in this investigation. What is supposed to happen is all of the interested parties, which would include the manufacturer of the airplane, Boeing, it would include the nations whose citizens were on the plane. It would include Ukraine. It would include all of the

interested parties are supposed to come together and leave politics at the door. And the reason for that is the purpose of these investigations is technically not to assign blame, but to make sure they don't happen again. These are called safety investigations, and that's why you're supposed to leave politics at the door. Okay. Mary Scavo, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

As we were just saying, Canada does not have a diplomatic relationship with Iran, which makes our country's involvement in the Iranian-led investigation of the crash much more challenging. At a press conference on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed this. He said that he's heard from a number of different countries who are pledging their support. He said that he's heard from a number of different countries who are pledging their support. Whether it's Ukraine or countries like Australia, Italy, France, to assist us in our consular work on the ground. As I said, Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne will be engaging directly with his Iranian counterpart to request assistance and presence by Canada, both in Tehran, but also as part of the investigation. The Canadian government is offering technical support for the investigation, and Ukraine has committed to helping Canada take part in it.

But Ukrainian officials themselves say they're waiting on Iran to grant them permission. That's all for today. We'll have more on this for you in the coming days. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk tomorrow.