Markham victim of Iran plane crash couldn’t get on wife’s earlier flight home

One of the victims of a deadly plane crash in Iran couldn’t get on an earlier flight home with his wife.

Asgar Dhirani and his wife, Razia, residents of Markham, were in Iran giving religious tours throughout the region as they had done in past years.

This time, however, 74-year-old Asgar made a last-minute decision to join the tour and was unable to get a ticket home on the same flight as his wife.

Instead, he booked a ticket for Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, which crashed early Wednesday after taking off from Tehran, killing everyone on board.

Razia made it home, but Asgar was among the 176 victims, including 57 Canadians.

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“My mom is one of the strongest individuals I know besides my dad and my brother,” Rehana said.

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“When she found out, she wanted to go back and get him. And that’s still what we’re going to try and do and bring something home.”

Rehana said she was “very close” with her father and last spoke to him over the phone before he boarded the aircraft.

“My dad was an amazing man who cared for so many people,” she said, adding she was planning to have dinner with him Friday night.

Meanwhile, Trudeau told reporters Thursday that intelligence received from allied and Canadian sources suggests the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired by Iran in the hours after the country launched missiles at military bases housing U.S. and coalition soldiers in Iraq.

Iran has so far denied that was the cause of the crash.

Iran since begun approving visas for some Canadian investigators amid a push for more access to the investigation.

– With files from Amanda Connolly