Ukraine International Airlines airplane
Ukraine International Airlines airplaneiStock

One woman aboard the doomed Ukrainian plane which crashed outside Tehran on Tuesday called her husband 20 minutes to express her concerns that something might happen to the plane.

Sheyda Shadkhoo was returning home after visiting her relatives in Iran. She was traveling on Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 to Kiev, Ukraine.

Her husband, Hassan Shadkhoo told CBC News that his wife called him shortly before the plane took off, frightened over the tensions between Iran and the US over the killing of Iranian General Qassem Solemaini.

"I spoke to her ... 20 minutes before the plane took off," Shadkhoo said.

"She wanted me to assure her that there wasn't going to be a war. I told her not to worry. Nothing's gonna happen, he added. "She said, 'OK. They're telling me to turn off my phone. Goodbye.' That was it."

The Boeing 737 crashed minutes after takeoff, killing all 176 people aboard. The disaster occurred hours after Iran launched a dozen ballistic missiles at US forces in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Solemaini.

Shadkhoo said his wife had a premonition that her plane would go down and that she wrote a post on Instagram expressing her fears before boarding.

"She knew. Look at her face, look at the poem that she wrote," he said, reading her post: "I'm leaving but ... what's behind me worries me, Behind me, behind me. I'm scared for the people behind me."