Two students from the University of Guelph and two from the University of Waterloo were among the 176 passengers and crew killed after a Ukrainian International Airlines plane crashed near Tehran on Wednesday, Jan. 8. Of the passengers, 63 were Canadian.
The University of Guelph lowered its flags to half-mast on Thursday, following the crash, in honour of Milad Ghasemi Ariani and Ghanimat Azhdari, the two students who were aboard the flight.
Ghanimat Azhdari was a PhD student in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, and Milad Ghasemi Ariani was pursuing a PhD in the Department of Marketing and Consumer Studies. Both were returning from visiting Iran.
University president Franco Vaccarino, said: “We are deeply saddened to hear of the tragic loss of two of our students. Our thoughts go out to the families of these two students and to anyone else affected by this tragedy. Any loss to our campus community touches all of us.”
One of my wonderful PhD students, Ghanimat Azdahri, was on the plane that crashed in Tehran this morning. Ghanimat was on her way back to @uofg after visiting her family and traditional Indigenous territories in Iran over the December break. The students and I are in so much pain pic.twitter.com/8aV76otPaP
— Dr. Faisal Moola (@faisal_moola) January 8, 2020
A statement from Ukraine International Airlines said that the airline is working to confirm the cause of the crash.