New video shows that 2 missiles struck the Ukrainian plane that crashed in Iran

Mahmoud Hosseini/picture alliance via Getty Images

Debris of Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 near Tehran airport on January 8 2020.

• New video shows that two Iranian missiles struck Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 before it crashed near Tehran.
• The video, which was verified by The New York Times, was originally uploaded to YouTube by an Iranian user.
• The video shows that the plane continued flying, while engulfed in flames, for a short time following the missile hits.
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A new video reveals that two missiles struck Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, which crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran, Iran early on January 8.

The video appears to be taken from a security camera on the roof of a building near where the plane was struck. The video, which was originally uploaded to YouTube by an Iranian user early Tuesday morning was verified as authentic by a New York Times investigations team.

The video shows the plane being struck by the first missile, which appeared to result in a small explosion, followed by the second missile strike about 20 seconds later.

Neither missile immediately downed the plane, which continued to fly for several minutes and attempted to return to the airport. The new video shows the plane appear to be on fire shortly after being hit by the second missile.

A video that emerged last week showed the impact from one of the missiles. All 176 people on the plane, a Boeing 737-800 bound for Kyiv, Ukraine, were killed.

The new video can help explain why the plane's transponder stopped transmitting before the crash, suggesting that it was disabled by the first missile.

The crash came hours after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at a military base in Iraq housing US forces. Iranian officials initially denied that it shot down the plane before reversing and confirming that it fired the missiles, blaming human error as the military was on high alert in case of retaliatory strikes.

Iranian officials have said that the plane wandered too close to a military site, but an analysis of transponder data from previous flights to Kyiv, and other flights the morning of January 8, shows that PS752 did not deviate from its normal route or vary significantly from other civil flights that day.

Iran's missile strike, which did not kill or injure any US troops at the Iraqi base that was targeted, was retaliation for a US strike that killed Iran's most prominent military general, Qassem Soleimani.

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