A Ukrainian commercial airliner carrying at least 170 passengers crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport in the early hours of January 8, killing everyone on board. According to initial reports the plane crashed due to technical problems.

A Ukrainian foreign ministry official in Kyiv said all crew and passengers aboard were killed, citing information from the airline, reports Reuters.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s press spokesperson said he had cut short his Christmas holiday in Oman and was returning to Kyiv as a result of the accident.

The Boeing 737 belonged to Ukraine International Airlines. Videos of the tragedy posted on social media show the plane on fire coming down near the airport and bursting into a ball of flames on impact.

Initially the Iranian rescue workers thought it might be possible to save passengers from the wreckage, but quickly released the flames were too intense.

"The fire is so heavy that we cannot [do] any rescue... we have 22 ambulances, four bus ambulances and a helicopter at the site," Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency services, told Iranian state television.

"The passengers and flight crew are deceased," the Ukrainian foreign ministry’s consular service said in a statement on Facebook.

Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, told state television that the number of passengers on board the flight was 170.

According to air tracking service FlightRadar24, the plane that crashed was Flight PS 752 and was flying to Kyiv. The plane was three years old and was a Boeing 737-NG, it said.

IRNA said according to preliminary information "the plane was bound for Kyiv ... and had 180 passengers and crew."

Boeing spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the company was aware of media reports of a plane crash in Iran and was gathering more information.

©2020 bne IntelliNews , source Magazine