Iran plane crash: Pilot’s widow ‘urged husband not to fly’

KIEV: The widow of the captain of a Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed in Iran said she had urged her husband not to fly the plane because of security fears in their final conversation.

Katerina Gaponenko told Sky News that she and Volodymyr, who have two young daughters, had expected the flight from Kiev to Tehran and back to be cancelled given the escalating tensions between the US and Iran. When it was not, she said she felt very worried.

She recalled their final conversation on the day he left Ukraine. She said: “I asked him: ‘Do not fly, do not do it.’ But he said: ‘We can’t backtrack, if it is not me, there is no one else. If it flies on schedule, I need to fly.’ I asked him to stay.”