The wife of the pilot who captained the Ukrainian passenger jet that was 'unintentionally' shot down in Iran says she begged her husband not to fly in the couple's final conversation.
Katerina Gaponenko said that she and her husband, Volodymyr, had expected the flight from Kyiv to Tehran and back to be cancelled amid the escalating tensions between the US and Iran .
When it was not, she felt very worried, she told Sky News .
In one of their final conversations, the couple, who have two young daughters, discussed the flight, with Katerina urging her husband not to pilot the plane.
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."
Mr Gaponenko flew the Boeing 737 from Kyiv to Tehran on January 7.
The following morning, the plane was still scheduled to make a return flight, despite the fact Iran had already fired several missiles at US targets across the border in Iraq, done in revenge for America's assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a drone strike several days earlier.
All 176 people on board the plane were killed when it crashed minutes after leaving Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran at 6.10am local time (2.40am GMT) on Wednesday, bound for the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Iran has since admitted the plane was "unintentionally" shot down due to human error.
The admission came on via Iranian state television, citing a statement from the country's military.
The regime claimed the plane had flown close to a sensitive military site belonging to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.
The country's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, admitted on Twitter : "A sad day. Preliminary conclusions of internal investigation by Armed Forces: human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster.
"Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations."
