Page 44 - IRANRptMar21

Iran ‘working on production line for 100 seat passenger plane’
Ontario court ‘expected to certify families' class action over shooting down by Iran of Ukrainian passenger aircraft’
Iran is planning to establish a production line for a 100-seat commercial passenger plane, Iran’s Civil Aviation Network News has reported the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) Touraj Dehqani Zanganeh as saying.
The CAO would reportedly work with the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics to roll out the production facility.
“We plan to build 70 and 100-seat aircraft inside the country, and [in this regard] we signed a memorandum of understanding with the defense ministry to use the country’s existing military capabilities for the construction of commercial aircraft,” Dehqani Zanganeh was cited as saying.
The Transport and Urban Development Ministry and CAO also signed the memorandum, he said.
Another memorandum is to be signed by the CAO and the Iranian Advanced Aviation and Transportation Technology Development Headquarters.
The project for the production of the aircraft was in the primary studies stage, the official Dehqani Zanganeh was also quoted as saying, adding: “I recently visited the production centre for these aircraft; significant progress has been achieved."
“There are a lot of knowledge-based companies established in the country that have great potential; Mapna, and another company are currently building gas turbines, and we are helping them to build aircraft engines,” he added. Deehqani Zanganeh also mentioned that the CAO was pursuing a project for manufacturing flight simulators which would be based on Kish Island.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice is expected to certify a class-action lawsuit against Iran, a wing of its military and Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) launched by families of some of those killed in the downing of Flight PS752 outside Tehran in early January last year, Canada’s CBC News has ​reported​.
Toronto-based lawyer Tom Arndt was cited as saying that the court heard the certification motion on February 16 and indicated it would be endorsing the proposed lawsuit.
Habib Haghjoo—who lost his daughter Saharnaz Haghjoo and his eight-year-old granddaughter Elsa Jadidi when PS752 was shot down, causing the loss of all 176 people on board, including 11 citizens of Ukraine, but mostly citizens of Iran and Canada—was reported as saying he's "thrilled" the lawsuit is moving ahead and that the point of the lawsuit was to seek justice, not compensation.
The class-action lawsuit reportedly alleges the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—the elite wing of Iran’s military—kept airspace open and planes flying during a period of intense military activity in order to collect overflight fees.
For three days after Kiev-bound Flight PS752 crashed, Iran denied shooting it down. In response to mounting international pressure and evidence, Iran later admitted the IRGC "mistakenly" shot down the Boeing 737-800 jet just hours after Iran's forces fired missiles at Iraqi bases where US troops were stationed in retaliation for the killing of Iran's top military leader, Major General Qasem Soleimani.
The proposed class action alleges the airline was negligent for not grounding its aircraft the morning PS752 was destroyed. Several airlines rerouted their flights, but Flight PS752 departed "despite the known risks," the law firm said in a press release when it launched the lawsuit.
The US Federal Aviation Administration had issued an official notice at the time directing American commercial aircraft to avoid Iran and the airspace from the Gulf of Oman to the Mediterranean.
44​ IRAN Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com