The Deliberate Downing of Flight PS752.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was shot down by two successive surface-to-air missiles of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) on January 8, 2020. All 176 passengers and crew were killed — along with 1 unborn child — totalling 177 lives lost. Among the passengers were citizens of Iran, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom.

Of the 167 passengers, 138 were travelling to Canada via Ukraine, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. The majority were children, university students, distinguished academics, and eminent professionals who had travelled during the Christmas break. This atrocious attack robbed many young souls of their hopes and dreams, left countless families deeply scarred, and shook the conscience of the world.

The downing occurred amid extraordinary tensions between Iran and the United States. Earlier that day, Iran had launched missiles at US military bases in Iraq — yet Iranian officials did not close Iranian airspace, allowing civilian flights to depart as normal.

In the initial hours following the attack, Iran began to bulldoze the crash site and clear debris, in direct violation of international law requiring a thorough and transparent investigation. Anti-riot police were also present at the site within hours to contain grieving families.

The families received little or none of the personal belongings of their loved ones. Credit cards, ID cards, Iranian passports, and boarding passes were returned intact — indicating they were methodically removed from wallets — but the wallets themselves were never returned. Almost all jewellery was stolen: wedding rings, engagement rings, lockets. In many cases, valuable stones and metals were removed, with mangled remains returned months later.

For seven months, Iran refused to share the flight recorders with other countries — despite ICAO regulations calling for their immediate read-out. Iran claimed the black boxes were damaged, changed its story multiple times, and insisted they be analyzed inside Iran despite lacking the capabilities to do so. On July 20, 2020, Iran finally delivered them to France.

The Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims was established as a not-for-profit corporation in Canada. Its members represent the majority of victims from all over the world, and its central mission is to seek justice and investigate the truth of the events leading to the attack.

In June 2020, Canada and partner nations filed a formal dispute with the ICAO Council under the Chicago Convention, citing Iran's violations of civil aviation safety obligations. The Association simultaneously sent an open letter to the ICAO President demanding the world body take a firm stand. Iran failed to engage substantively, ultimately compelling the escalation to treaty arbitration.

On September 14, 2022, the Association submitted an official criminal complaint against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IRGC to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, calling for individual criminal accountability for those who ordered and carried out the attack.

In December 2022, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom formally requested arbitration against Iran under the Montreal Convention. Iran refused, triggering the escalation to the highest international court.

In July 2023, all four nations filed a joint application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Simultaneously, an Ontario Superior Court had already ruled in 2021 that the downing constituted an "act of terrorism" under Canadian law. These parallel tracks — ICAO, ICC, ICJ, and domestic courts — represent an unprecedented multi-forum pursuit of accountability for an act of state-sponsored aviation terrorism.