UIA press briefing. Brief overview
The UIA CEO Evgeniy Dykhne opened the briefing by saying that he is very proud to be the head of the airline which safely operated for 27 years and puts safety always at first. He said that from the very beginning they were convinced that neither the pilot error or technical failure could have been the cause of the crash. They believed it was an external factor all the way. Today’s declaration from Iran now rules out other probable causes and stops further speculation. Evgeniy then went into some details of the necessary steps the airline is taking to support the families of the victims. He also answered a frequently asked question on why the airline continued flying in/from Iran, explaining that they had no information whatsoever about any potential threats or warnings that it would be unsafe for commercial airplanes to fly. UIA went into the specifics of the events of that day, explaining in details and stating that pilots were following all the right and standard protocol, didn’t get any warnings. Media questions included a wide range of topics on possible compensation Ukraine and families of the victims might get, how the accident will impact the airline operations, also some political questions on how Ukraine and president Zelensky might want to deal with Iran on this.
On his public page on Facebook, Evgeniy also posted the following (translation from Russian):
https://www.facebook.com/eugenedihne/
“We didn’t doubt for a second that our crew and our plane could not be the cause for this tragic accident. Thank you to all those who were thinking and analyzing this, who shared and shared this belief with us. It is very important for us. These were our best guys and girls. The best. We grieve and the whole world grieves with us. 167 lives lost. 9 of our crew members.”
Ukraine airline says plane had no warning of threat before Iran crash https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-crash-uia-president/ukraine-airline-says-plane-had-no-warning-of-threat-before-iran-crash-idUSKBN1ZA0FQ
Ukraine airline chief says he never believed airline caused Iran crash
The Latest: Airline Says Iran Should Have Closed Airspace
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/01/11/world/middleeast/ap-ml-iran-plane-crash-the-latest.html