A Ukrainian airliner crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran yesterday killing all 176 people on board, mainly Iranians and Canadians.

Search-and-rescue teams were combing through the smoking wreckage of the Boeing 737 flight from Tehran to Kiev at press time but officials said there was no hope of finding anyone alive. The vast majority of the passengers on the Ukraine International Airlines flight were non-Ukrainians, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians, officials said.

As well as the Iranians and Canadians, the passengers included 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons, Ukraine’s foreign minister said. Eleven Ukrainians including the nine crew were also on board.

UIA, the ex-Soviet country’s privately owned flagship carrier, said flight PS752 took off from Tehran airport at 6:10 am and disappeared from radars just two minutes later. It slammed into farmland at Khalaj Abad, in Shahriar county, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of the airport, Iranian state media said.

Footage released by Iranian state media showed a field on fire and the smouldering wreck of the plane. Rescue workers carried body bags and the passengers’ personal items including luggage, clothes, a Santa Claus doll and a boxing glove were scattered in the debris.

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Two passengers registered on the flight did not board before take-off, Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s national security council, told reporters. The airline said the Boeing 737 had been built in 2016 and checked only two days before the accident. It was Kiev-based UIA’s first fatal crash.

The crash occurred with tensions high in the Middle East and shortly after Tehran launched missiles at bases in Iraq housing United States troops. But there was no immediate indication of foul play and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned against “speculating” on the cause of the disaster.

The US aviation authority said it had banned US-registered carriers from flying over Iraq, Iran and the Gulf, and airlines including Lufthansa and Air France suspended flights through Iraqi and Iranian airspace.

“The plane was in working order,” UIA company president Yevgeniy Dykhne told a briefing in Kiev where he choked back tears. “It was one of our best planes with a wonderful crew.” Zelensky, who cut short a vacation in Oman to return to Kiev, ordered an investigation into the crash and a sweeping check of “all civilian aircraft” in the country. “I ask everyone to keep from speculating and putting forth unconfirmed theories about the crash,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook.