‘Sorrow, sadness and rage’: Remembering Montrealers killed in Iranian plane crash five years ago

Armin Morattab has countless happy memories of his twin brother, but it’s hard not to think sometimes of all Arvin has missed over the years.

There was the birth of Armin’s daughter in 2022, his new home in Brossard – even the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arvin and his wife Aida Farzaneh were on the Ukraine Flight PS752 that was shot down on Jan. 8, 2020 – five years ago – killing all 176 people on board. Nearly 140 of those killed had ties to Canada.

BACKGROUND: ‘It’s unimaginable’: Brothers mourn lost loved ones a year after Iranian plane crash

Armin says Arvin and Aida, both graduates from Montreal’s École de Technologie Supérieure, were also planning to buy a home and start a family.

“My daughter born, it’s something that I wish Arvin and Aida were there as well to see, because we were talking about that a lot, right, and they also had the same plan for themselves,” Armin said.

“They would like to have a kid soon. So even, they bought some clothes for their kid in Iran.”

Armin’s daughter is nearly three years old, and she never got the chance to meet her uncle.

“We have Arvin and Ida’s photos at our place, and sometimes she’s asking, ‘is this you?’” Armin said. “‘Because it looks like you.’ Because we were twins. ‘So is this you?’ And I tell her that, ‘no, this is Arvin, my brother, your uncle.’

“It’s moments that sometimes you imagine if they were present, we could have a lot of interesting things to do. Like probably they had kids, so we could like, just our kids play together.”

Armin says he and his wife Nikoo live with an “emptiness” – and have been for five years.

“We kind of miss them a lot,” he said.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 crashed after takeoff near Tehran, Iran, after it was struck by two surface-to-air missiles launched by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Armin and other families – who formed an association – have been fighting for justice ever since.

“Those who have done this crime, we would like to push for their trial in an independent court,” Armin told CityNews. “We know that it might be hard now, but maybe who knows, like in the near future, the regime in Iran changes, we might have this independent court happen in Iran and we bring all those perpetrators to independent courts for what they’ve done.

“We are hopeful. We have hope in the process and we will fight for that.”

The families, which lean on each other for support.

“Most of them have the same feeling,” Armin said. “It’s the same kind of sorrow, sadness and rage.

“We could stand within the last five years fighting and also sharing our feelings together. It’s like, you don’t feel alone anymore.”

While the feelings of emptiness are there, Armin also remembers moments of joy with his twin.

The brothers explored Canada’s landscapes by camping together when they first arrived in 2011, following by several visits to Sépaq national parks.

One of their last trips together was at Jacques Cartier National Park near Quebec City in the summer of 2019.

“We spent like two, three nights in the woods, and like starting from the morning, preparing the breakfast. Yeah. Like having the fire, preparing the breakfast, sitting down together and just enjoying the good weather.

“The last day, we’re about to leave, it was so sunny, but suddenly, rain started and we didn’t leave. So we just started to dance Kurdish under the rain.

“That’s what we miss. Right. Those moments of joy and happiness and you think, it’s not there anymore. And we miss those moments a lot.”