Flags flew with black ribbons across Ukraine on Jan. 9. Piles of flowers lay by the Iranian Embassy in Kyiv and in the arrival hall of Kyiv Boryspil International Airport. The nation is in mourning for 176 people killed in the crash of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 in Tehran, Iran, just a day earlier.
The flight was carrying nationals of Iran, Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom and Ukraine to Kyiv, where many planned to catch connecting flights. Twenty-six of the victims were under 18, and 13 were children under 10. The list of victims included families, a newlywed couple and many university students and professors.
Two passengers didn’t show up for the flight. One, Mohsen Ahmadipour from Ottawa, couldn’t board after he changed his itinerary and discovered it was no longer valid. He lost his wife on the flight.
Ukraine lost 11 citizens, including nine crew members. Yevhen Dykhne, the UIA’s CEO, said the team was one of the best. He was crying as he delivered the statement.
Volodymyr Gaponenko, chief pilot
Gaponenko was the commander. A career pilot, he had more than 11,600 hours of experience piloting Boeing 737s. He left a wife and two daughters.
“He was living for aviation, that was his life… He was a truly great pilot,” Gaponenko’s widow Kateryna told NewsOne TV channel. “We have two kids. I have to be strong.”
Gaponenko graduated from the Flight School of Civil Aviation in Kropyvnytskiy, which is now part of the Kyiv-based National Aviation University.
Oleksiy Naumkin, pilot
Naumkin had more than 12,000 hours of experience in the cockpits of Boeing 737 planes. On the PS752 flight, he was the reserve pilot. Naumkin was called up to join the other two pilots to reinforce the crew due to the complexity and duration of the flight, according to UIA.
Naumkin’s Facebook account has only two photographs of him — both from his visit to London in August 2014. One of Naumkin’s university classmates, Sergiy Chorniy, wrote in a Facebook post: “He was among the best pilots in the entire course. He was a decent person from a (family) dynasty of pilots. Rest in peace, friend.”
Serhiy Khomenko, first officer
Khomenko spent 7,600 hours in the sky while working in Boeing 737 aircraft. “Unfortunately, in such a situation the pilots were powerless and got caught in the situation. Nothing can save them in such conditions,” the Ukrainian National Pilots Union said in a statement.
Kateryna Statnik, senior flight attendant
Statnik, 27, was the senior flight attendant. She worked at UIA for seven years and lived in Kyiv.
Tata Kovnatskaya, who has also been a flight attendant since 2016, told the Kyiv Post that Statnik was “an unbelievably easygoing person.” Kovnatskaya described Statnik as “stylish and sporty.”
Statnik loved to travel, but celebrated New Year’s Eve in Kyiv, according to her Instagram account.
“I personally can’t believe that Ekaterina isn’t with us anymore,” Kovnatskaya said.
Ihor Matkov, senior flight attendant
Matkov, 34, worked for Ukraine International Airlines for 10 years.
“Last night we wished him a good flight. He waved to us when leaving (for Tehran). He told me, ‘Mom, I will be home in the morning,’” Matkov’s mother told the Obozveratel news site on Jan. 8 at Boryspil International Airport. Obozrevatel says that she and Matkov’s father learned about the crash from the news. They came to the airport looking for more information.
“He was a shining personality, a very friendly and open-minded person,” Julia Rudnik, a friend of Ihor Matkov told the Kyiv Post in a Facebook message. They studied Arabic together at the Kyiv National Linguistic University.
“Ihor was a bright person, who has to be remembered in the best way,” another university friend, Vladyslav Pérez, told the Kyiv Post.
Maria Mykytiuk, flight attendant
Mykytiuk, 24, had visited 23 countries, according to her Instagram account. She used to regularly share photographs from different parts of the world. Her last picture, posted in December, was from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. In the image, Mykytiuk is smiling at the camera with the night city behind her.
She was born in Ivano-Frankivsk, a provincial capital located 620 kilometers west of Kyiv. Like several other crew members, she was a graduate of the National Aviation University in Kyiv.
Maria Kodenchuk, a former flight attendant who was sometimes Mykytiuk’s roommate when they stayed at hotels in the foreign destinations they were flying to, remembers her warmly.
“She has always reminded me of an actress… She is my age so we always had things to discuss,” Kodenchuk told the Kyiv Post in an Instagram message. “She was very nice to work with and very professional.”
Denys Lykhno, flight attendant
Lykhno had been working for UIA for two years. Overall, he had spent five years working in aviation, his father Mykhailo Lykhno told the Segodnya news outlet. Lykhno graduated from the National Aviation University in 2018.
“He was a good guy and a cool friend,” his classmates said in a statement to Telegram messenger channel Nauchan News. “It always seemed that he would live a long and successful life.”
In his last photograph, shared on Instagram two months earlier during a vacation in Thailand, Lykhno is hugging his girlfriend and smiling. He wrote back then: “Thailand was memorable.”
Valeriia Ovcharuk, flight attendant
Ovcharuk, 28, loved to travel. She posted more than 400 photographs from numerous countries and wrote funny texts describing her adventures, sometimes in English.
She had worked for UIA as a flight attendant for six years. Born in Luhansk, Ovcharuk lived in Kyiv. Among her friends were other flight attendants and pilots. Ovcharuk’s last Instagram photograph was published in February 2019. In her bio on the social media platform, she included a quote from an R. Kelly song: “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky.”
Yulia Sologub, flight attendant
Sologub, 25, was born in Novovolynsk, a city some 500 kilometers west of Kyiv, and lived in the capital. In 2016, she graduated from Kyiv National Linguistic University with a major in the French language.
Sologub got married a little more than a year ago, according to her Facebook account. Her social media profiles have many photos of her smiling and holding flowers. She worked as a flight attendant for about six months, Ukrainian media reported. Her childhood friend, a journalist Andriy Kravchenko, wrote on Facebook: “She was great and bright. This is horrible. I love and remember you, Yulichka,” he wrote.
Olena Malakhova, passenger
Malakhova, 38, lived in Kyiv. She was a chief executive officer of SkyAviatrans, an aircraft and helicopter charter company, and Volaris Business, a multibusiness company registered in the United Kingdom.
Malakhova’s Facebook profile features a photo of the Il-76TD airplane and a candle mourning her death.
“You were an example for me. You taught me a lot. You showed me that a woman could be strong, beautiful, wise and fearless,” her friend Shura Matyash wrote on Facebook. “Thank you for being in my life!”
In a Facebook post, Malakhova’s husband called on the public to pray for “Lena and all those killed” in the crash.
Olga Kobiuk, passenger
Kobiuk, 61, lived in Kyiv. She most likely traveled to Iran to meet her daughter and grandson. Her social media profiles feature photos taken at the historical sights of Tehran. In one Instagram photo, Kobiuk sits hugging a small boy at Golestan Palace, a UNESCO heritage site in Tehran. She wrote: “With my beloved grandson! I’ve touched history.”
