Days after claiming that the catastrophic crash of a Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 plane was caused by a mechanical failure, the Iranian military acknowledged that it erroneously downed the jet with a missile strike, killing all 176 people aboard.
Tag: Iran
President Donald Trump and other U.S. officials today voiced suspicions that Iranian surface-to-air missiles brought down the Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 jet that crashed in Iran on Jan. 8 amid a volley of attacks.
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Ukrainian Boeing 737 jet crashes in Iran
A Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 jet carrying 176 people crashed tonight after taking off from Tehran’s international airport, killing all aboard, Iranian news media reported.
A broad range of aerospace and defense stocks rose today as markets put a martial spin on President Donald Trump’s decision to make a “hard exit” from an international nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran. That’s not surprising — nor is it surprising that Boeing’s share price fell instead.
Trump’s intention to reimpose trade sanctions almost certainly dooms Boeing’s $16.6 billion deal to sell 80 jets to Iran Air. That sale agreement covered 50 single-aisle 737 MAX jets and 80 wide-body 777s. A separate memorandum of agreement called for Boeing to sell 30 737 MAX jets to Iran Aseman Airlines for a list-price total of $3.4 billion.
The loss is tempered by the fact that Boeing wasn’t counting on the deals going through.
The Boeing Co. and Iran Air say they have signed a sale agreement for 80 jets, valued at a list price of $16.6 billion.
The deal announced today follows through on a memorandum of agreement that was laid out in June, as well as a U.S. government license that was issued to Boeing in September. The big question is whether the sale will continue to pass muster next year once the Trump administration and a new Congress have a chance to weigh in.
The agreement covers 50 single-aisle 737 MAX 8 jets, 15 wide-body 777-300ER jets, and 15 777-9s. That last bunch of jets will be derivatives of the 777-300ER, part of the 777X program that has yet to enter production.
Boeing said the first deliveries would be made in 2018, while Iran’s state-owned IRNA news agency quoted an aviation official as saying the jets will be delivered over the course of 10 years.
Reports from Tehran suggest that Iran’s flag carrier airline has struck a deal to purchase jetliners from the Boeing Co., which would mark a milestone in U.S. commercial relations with the Islamic Republic.
“In coming days, details of the deal with this company will be announced,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Abbas Akhoundi, Iran’s minister of roads and urban development, as saying today.
The Reuters news agency quoted unnamed sources as saying the deal calls for Iran Air to acquire more than 100 Boeing jets, from the company directly and from leasing companies. Iran Air operates under the umbrella of Akhoundi’s ministry.
Such an arrangement would match Iran Air’s provisional agreement to purchase 118 Airbus jets worth as much as $27 billion. Reuters said that the Airbus agreement, announced in January, still requires export licenses from the United States due to the use of significant U.S. technology.