Venice: A Vacation Destination For Hundreds of Years

The drawing accompanied one friar’s first-person account of a trip from Venice to Jerusalem and EgyptThis illustration of Venice accompanied a manuscript of one friar's journey from Venice to Egypt and Jerusalem. (Image of Venice supplied by the Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, II.IV.101, fol. 1v. With permission of the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence.)

Friar Niccolò da Poggibonsi began his travelogue with a prayer. Per a modern translation, he asked that God and all God’s saints “bestow their grace” so he might accurately describe all the holy sites, “in order and without misstep,” that he had visited over the past four years.

After departing Venice in 1346, the Franciscan friar ventured to Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo and Alexandria, writes researcher Kathryn Blair Moore in the journal Renaissance Quarterly. Niccolò took notes on gesso tablets while he traveled, and when he returned to Venice in 1350, wrote down his full firsthand account. The oldest manuscript of the work and its illustrations, titled Libro d’Oltramare, now resides in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence.

It was here that Sandra Toffolo, a scholar of Renaissance Venetian history at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, noticed an illustration showing the Italian city’s characteristic buildings, canals and gondolas. The illustration is the oldest drawing of Venice yet discovered, excluding maps, the oldest of which dates to 1330 and was created by Fra Paolino, another Venetian Franciscan friar.

“The discovery of this city view has great consequences for our knowledge of depictions of Venice,” says Toffolo in a statement. “It shows that the city of Venice already from a very early period held a great fascination for contemporaries.”

Niccolò took great care with his travelogue, taking measurements of landmarks in the Holy Land by counting paces or comparing them to the length of his arm. Every day, he recorded these observations in his tablets.

In addition to the Venice drawing, Niccolò’s account featured illustrations of elephants and architecture in Cairo, as well as the Dome of the Rock and the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Niccolò was unique for his time in describing the journey in the vernacular, giving a new first-person perspective rather than relying on classic Latin descriptions.

Per the statement, small pinpricks seen on the Florentine manuscript indicate it was once widely circulated. To reproduce images, Renaissance copyists sifted powder over pinpricked paper, transferring the outlines of the scene onto a new page.

“The presence of these pinpricks is a strong indication that this city view was copied,” explains Toffolo. “Indeed, there are several images in manuscripts and early printed books that are clearly based on the image in the manuscript in Florence.”

Niccolò’s text became one of the most referenced Holy Land guidebooks in the early Renaissance—but only after it was translated and reprinted under different names. Published in German during the 15th century, it was then said to describe the pilgrimage of Gabriel Muffel, son of a Nuremburg patrician. In 1518, meanwhile, the first edition of an anonymous account titled Viaggio da Venetia al Sancto Sepolchro et al Monte Sinai, or Voyage From Venice to the Holy Sepulcher and to Mount Sinai, was published in Venice. Over the next 300 years or so, sixty more editions followed. The work was only credited to its original author in “due course,” according to the British Library.

The “City of Water” is located in northeast Italy, spanning 118 islands in the Venetian Lagoon. Buildings in Venice were constructed on wood piles driven into the mud, sand and clay layers under the lagoon. Many of the buildings in Venice still sit on these piles driven more than a thousand years ago. From a recent trip I have inserted a couple of pictures of the famed city.  

The name is derived from the ancient people of Veneti that inhabited the region as of 10th century B.C. The city historically was the capital of the Venetian Republic. Venice has been known as the "La Dominante", "Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals". Luigi Barzini, writing in The New York Times, described it as "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man". Venice has also been described by the Times Online as being one of Europe's most romantic cities. The city stretches across 117 small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. The saltwater lagoon stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po (south) and the Piave (north) Rivers. The population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; around 60,000 in the historic city of Venice (Centro storico); 176,000 in Terraferma (the Mainland), mostly in the large frazioni of Mestre and Marghera; and 31,000 live on other islands in the lagoon.

The Republic of Venice was a major maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially silk, grain and spice trade) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.

While there are no historical records that deal directly with the obscure and peripheral origins of Venice, tradition and the available evidence have led several historians to agree that the original population of Venice consisted of refugees from Roman cities near Venice such as Padua, Aquileia, Treviso, Altino and Concordia (modern Portogruaro) and from the undefended countryside, who were fleeing successive waves of Germanic invasions and Huns. Some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae ("lagoon dwellers"). The traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo at the islet of Rialto (Rivoalto, "High Shore"), which is said to have been at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. The last and most enduring irruption in the north of the Italian peninsula, was that of the Lombards in 568, leaving the Eastern Roman Empire a small strip of coast in the current Veneto, and the main administrative and religious entities were therefore transferred to this remaining dominion, centered upon the Exarchate of Ravenna, the local representative of the Emperor in the East. The Venetian tradition of the islanders' aid to Belisarius was reported in early histories to explain the largely theoretical link to Ravenna, and to the Eastern Emperor. New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, dated from c. 568.

The classical Venetian boat is the gondola, although it is now mostly used for tourists, or for weddings, funerals, or other ceremonies. Many gondolas are lushly appointed with crushed velvet seats and Persian rugs. Less well-known is the smaller sandolo. The main transportation means are motorised waterbuses (vaporetti) which ply regular routes along the major canals and between the city's islands, and private boats. The only gondolas still in common use by Venetians are the traghetti, foot passenger ferries crossing the Grand Canal at certain points without bridges. St Mark's Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco a Venezia), the cathedral of Venice, is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. It lies on St Mark's Square, adjacent and connected to the Doge's Palace and has been the seat of the Patriarch of Venice, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice since 1807. For its opulent design, gilded Byzantine mosaics, and its status as a symbol of Venetian wealth and power from the 11th century on, the building was known by the nickname Chiesa d'Oro ("church of gold").

Situated on the Adriatic Sea, Venice always traded with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world extensively. By the late thirteenth century, Venice was the most prosperous city in all of Europe. At the peak of its power and wealth, it had 36,000 sailors operating 3,300 ships, dominating Mediterranean commerce. During this time, Venice's leading families vied with each other to build the grandest palaces and support the work of the greatest and most talented artists. The city was governed by the Great Council, which was made up of members of the noble families of Venice. The Great Council appointed all public officials and elected a Senate of 200 to 300 individuals. Since this group was too large for efficient administration, a Council of Ten (also called the Ducal Council or the Signoria), controlled much of the administration of the city. One member of the great council was elected "Doge", or duke, the ceremonial head of the city, who normally held the title until his death. The Venetian governmental structure was similar in some ways to the republican system of ancient Rome, with an elected chief executive (the Doge), a senate-like assembly of nobles, and a mass of citizens with limited political power, who originally had the power to grant or withhold their approval of each newly elected Doge. Church and various private properties were tied to military service, though there was no knight tenure within the city itself. The Cavalieri di San Marco was the only order of chivalry ever instituted in Venice, and no citizen could accept or join a foreign order without the government's consent. Venice remained a republic throughout its independent period and politics and the military were kept separate, except when on occasion the Doge personally headed the military. War was regarded as a continuation of commerce by other means (hence, the city's early production of large numbers of mercenaries for service elsewhere, and later its reliance on foreign mercenaries when the ruling class was preoccupied with commerce). The buildings of Venice are constructed on closely spaced wood piles, which were imported from the mainland. (Under water, in the absence of oxygen, wood does not decay. It is petrified as a result of the constant flow of mineral-rich water around and through it, so that it becomes a stone-like structure.) The piles penetrate a softer layer of sand and mud until they reach the much harder layer of compressed clay. Wood for piles was cut in the most western part of today's Slovenia, resulting in the barren land in a region today called Kras, in two regions of Croatia, Lika and Gorski kotar (resulting in the barren slopes of Velebit) and south of Montenegro. Most of these piles are still intact after centuries of submersion. The foundations rest on the piles, and buildings of brick or stone sit above these footings. The buildings are often threatened by flood tides pushing in from the Adriatic between autumn and early spring. Six hundred years ago, Venetians protected themselves from land-based attacks by diverting all the major rivers flowing into the lagoon and thus preventing sediment from filling the area around the city. This created an ever-deeper lagoon environment. During the 20th century, when many artesian wells were sunk into the periphery of the lagoon to draw water for local industry, Venice began to subside. It was realised that extraction of water from the aquifer was the cause. The sinking has slowed markedly since artesian wells were banned in the 1960s. However, the city is still threatened by more frequent low-level floods (called Acqua alta, "high water") that creep to a height of several centimetres over its quays, regularly following certain tides. In many old houses the former staircases used to unload goods are now flooded, rendering the former ground floor uninhabitable.

5

St Mark Plaza and the famous campanille. To the right, a small connecting structure is the Bridge of Sighs. The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice out the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built, and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals.

Our ship the Costa Atlantica coasting between the islands of Venice

Train Station foreground. Public transportation is provided by the water bus and by private water taxis. Running through most of the city, it "starts" from the lagoon near the train station, makes a large S-shape through the central districts, the "sestiere" of Venice, and ends at the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, near Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark's Square), with an average depth of five meters.

More Links:

Map of Venice – Google Maps

Venice Wikipedia Page

Official City of Venice Site

Virtual Travel Site for Venice

Historic Images of Venice

New video shows 'missile' hit Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 before it crashed killing 176 - after Trump and Trudeau both said attack was a 'mistake' - while Iran accuses the West of 'psychological warfare' as it DENIES it blew jet out of the sky 

New video shows 'missile' hit Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 before it crashed killing 176 - after Trump and Trudeau both said attack was a 'mistake' while Iran accuses the West of 'psychological warfare' as it DENIES it blew jet out of the sky

• Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashed outside of Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 on board 
• Footage emerged on Thursday which appears to show a missile hitting the jet before it went down 
• US intelligence are 'confident' the airliner was shot down by Iran after detecting two missile launches 
• Pentagon officials said missiles likely fired in error by crews on alert for US response to Iran rocket strike
• President Trump said: 'Somebody could have made a mistake. I have a feeling something terrible happened'
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later echoed Trump's concerns, saying that evidence indicates an Iranian missile downed the and that the strike 'may have been unintentional'   
• Iran claims that the crash was the result of mechanical error and that black box may have been 'damaged' 
• An Iranian official called reports of the missile being fired by its own military 'psychological warfare' 
• The plane was carrying 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, three Britons, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans and three Germans
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Chilling new video appears to show the moment an Iranian missile hit a Ukrainian passenger plane just before it crashed, killing all 176 people on board.  

The footage emerged Thursday afternoon, hours after President Donald Trump revealed he has serious doubts the crash was caused by mechanical failure, as Iranian officials have claimed.

'It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood. Somebody could have made a mistake,' Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. 'I have a feeling that something very terrible happened, very devastating.' 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later echoed Trump's concerns, saying that evidence indicates an Iranian missile downed the and that the strike 'may have been unintentional'.

Trudeau said Canadian and allied intelligence supports that conclusion. He declined to get into the specific intelligence, but said it appeared it was a surface-to-air missile that struck the plane.

'The intelligence evidence suggests very clearly a possible and probable cause for the crash,' Trudeau told a news conference. 

Soon after Trudeau and Trump spoke out, Iran issued a statement denying that the airliner was struck by a missile. 

'All these reports are a psychological warfare against Iran,' Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said, according to state TV. 'All those countries whose citizens were aboard the plane can send representatives and we urge Boeing to send its representative to join the process of investigating the black box.' 

However, US intelligence officials are 'confident' that Iran shot down the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 by mistake, one official told the New York Times. The official said two missiles had been fired from an Iranian air defense system, the SA-15, shortly before an explosion came from the jet.  

Two Pentagon officials added that the missiles were likely launched in error by Iranian anti-aircraft crews awaiting a US response to Iran's rocket strikes against American bases in Iraq hours earlier, according to Newsweek.  

The plane, a Boeing 737-800 en route from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport to Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport, encountered a problem moments after takeoff in the early hours of Wednesday.

The latest video appears to show a missile hitting the plane as it flew over Parand, the area where it stopped transmitting its signal before the crash.  

A small explosion occurred when the missile struck but the plane did not explode. It continued flying for several minutes and turned back toward the airport while engulfed in flames before it exploded and crashed quickly.  

If Iran is responsible for the incident, it would be hugely embarrassing for the nation which had sought to avoid killing anybody in Wednesday's strikes. Eighty-two of the plane's passengers were Iranians.

It could also spark fresh tensions in the Middle East just a day after Trump said Iran seemed to be 'standing down'., as the plane was also carrying 63 Canadians, three Britons, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans and three Germans. 

Video appears to show missile hitting Ukranian plane

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New video appears to show a missile hitting the Ukrainian plane that crashed in Iran moments before it went down. The footage emerged on Thursday afternoon, hours after Pentagon officials said they believe the Ukrainian Airlines flight which crashed in Tehran killing 176 people Wednesday was shot out of the sky by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile system

Trump says downed Ukrainian plane in Iran could have been mistake

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President Donald Trump on Thursday said he has serious doubts that the Ukrainian plane crash in Iran was caused by mechanical failure after Pentagon officials claimed that the jet was shot down

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'It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood. Somebody could have made a mistake,’ Trump told reporters at the White House. ‘I have a feeling that something very terrible happened, very devastating'

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later echoed Trump's concerns, saying that evidence indicates an Iranian missile downed the and that the strike 'may have been unintentional'

Trudeau says Canadians deserve answers on plane crash

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US intelligence is 'confident' that Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 which crashed just outside Tehran on Wednesday morning was shot down by Iranian anti-aircraft batteries (pictured, missile wreckage reportedly found near the scene) 

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Questions were first raised when pictures of the plane debris appeared to show shrapnel holes in the fuselage. US officials now say they detected two missile launches just before an explosion, believed to have come from the jet 

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If true the news would be hugely embarrassing to Iran - which had 82 citizens on board the plane - and threaten to reignite tensions in the Middle East just a day after Trump said the regime was 'standing down'

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Members of the International Red Crescent collect bodies of victims around the wreckage after an Ukraine International Airlines jet crashed in Iran yesterday

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Wreckage of the plane which investigators in Iran say was trying to turn back to the airport when it crashed as the result of a mechanical fault, killing 176 people

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Witnesses said they heard 'two very loud noises' coming from Parandak garrison moments before the Ukrainian airline crashed in farmland just after take off from Imam Khomeini International Airport. A section of rocket was said to have been found in front of a home in the city of Parand 

The US intelligence officials spoke out as Ukraine confirmed it is sending missile analysts to the site to investigate.

UK officials also confirmed they are looking into 'very concerning' reports that the airliner was shot down by a missile. 

The Times reported that the Iranian military could have brought out the SA-15 system to defend the Tehran airport if they believed the US intended to retaliate following the missile strike. The system could have been used to intercept guided missiles fired by the US.  

Iranian investigators have insisted that the crash was an 'accident', but have refused to hand over the black box recorded to international investigators.

Some Iranian reports have claimed the black boxes were damaged, and parts of the recordings lost. 

The head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, Ali Abedzadeh, was quick to reject any suggestion that the plane was shot down as 'scientifically impossible', insisting that its missiles were not capable of reaching that altitude.    

New footage captured the moment a burning Ukrainian passenger jet exploded into pieces yesterday - as Iran said the plane was trying to turn back after a technical fault but Ukraine sent missile specialists to inspect the wreckage. 

The CCTV footage shows the burning jet plane lighting up a dark street as it approaches before it explodes in a huge fireball. 

The explosion sends flaming debris from the Boeing 737 flying in all directions. 

Iranian television broadcast the footage today, while a separate 28-second clip taken from the front seat of a car appeared to confirm that the plane was already ablaze when it dropped out of the sky from 8,000 feet. 

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New footage shows the moment a burning Ukrainian passenger jet exploded into pieces near Tehran early yesterday morning 

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Debris from the plane after it exploded in a fireball near Tehran yesterday morning Footage taken from the front seat of a car purports to show the burning plane falling from the sky before it crashes in a fireball in a field near Tehran

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An image from the flight tracker website Flightradar24 showing the path of the Ukranian International Airlines jet which crashed just over two minutes after taking off from Tehran

Iran says the plane had suffered a technical fault, caught fire and started to head back to Tehran, but the crew did not make a radio call to raise the alarm. 

Nonetheless, Ukraine is continuing to probe a possible shoot-down and has sent a team of missile specialists to Iran to examine whether a Russian-made weapon could have brought down the plane. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday vowed to find the 'truth' as he declared a day of national mourning after the crash.    

The crash came just hours after Iran fired missiles at US bases in revenge for the death of Qassem Soleimani, sparking fresh fears in the tense Middle East.  

Witnesses on the ground and on board a nearby aircraft saw a fire 'growing in intensity' before the Ukrainian International Airlines jet came down, they say. 

'The plane, which was initially headed west to leave the airport zone, turned right following a problem and was headed back to the airport at the moment of the crash,' the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization says. 

'The plane disappeared from radar screens the moment it reached 8,000 feet. The pilot sent no radio message about the unusual circumstances. 

'According to eyewitnesses, a fire was seen on board the plane which grew in intensity.' 

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Iranian investigators have not said what kind of technical fault, such as a mechanical failure or defective part, could have caused the plane to catch fire.  

The agency said it had questioned witnesses on the ground and on board a second aircraft which was flying above the Boeing 737. 

Issuing an initial report within 24 hours is rare and it can take months to fully determine the cause of an air disaster. 

Last night a Canadian security source said Western intelligence agencies did not believe the plane was shot down, easing fears of a missile strike. 

Security sources also say there was evidence that one of the engines has overheated.    

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A Ukraine International Airlines worker leaves flowers today at a memorial for the nine crew members who were killed in Wednesday's plane disaster 

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Candles and flowers are left by the portraits of the crew members who were on board the stricken Boeing jet 

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Pilot Volodymyr Gaponenko (pictured) and his crew on board the Ukrainian International Airlines flight did not make a radio call to raise the alarm, investigators say 

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Mourners attend a vigil at University of Toronto student housing for the victims of a Ukrainian passenger jet which crashed in Iran. Sixty-three Canadians were killed 

Despite the claims of technical failure, Ukraine is sending missile specialists to examine the wreckage of the Boeing jet. 

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's Security Council, told Ukrainian media that a missile strike was one of the 'main theories' along with a collision, an engine explosion or terrorism. 

A special commission of experts sent to Tehran includes specialists who found evidence that a Russian weapon had brought down MH17 over Ukraine in 2014. 

The team of 45 experts want to examine whether a Russian-made Tor missile could have shot down the Ukrainian International Airlines plane on Wednesday.  

The specialists are awaiting permission from Iranian authorities to examine the crash site and look for missile fragments, Danilov said. 

They will also seek to identify the Ukrainian victims with a view to repatriating their remains. 

Russia delivered 29 Tor-M1s to Iran in 2007 as part of a $700million dollar contract signed in December 2005, and Iran has displayed them in military parades.  

Danilov also referred to images which circulated last night showing what appeared to be the charred remnants of a rocket. 

The images were unverified and could be a hoax, but Danilov said the 'information [which] has surfaced on the internet' had bolstered the missile strike theory.  ideo footage appeared to show the Ukrainian plane already ablaze as it fell from the sky before crashing 

British consulting firm IHS Markit released a report Thursday morning which said the plane was 'likely to have been shot down mistakenly' by Iranian forces. 

Calling the missile pictures 'credible', the group suggested that the revolutionary guards could have mistaken a civilian airliner for a US military aircraft. 

They added: 'Publicly available flight data for UIA Flight 752 is not consistent with the [Iranian] claim that the airliner was attempting to return to the airport. 

'The aircraft's pilots made no distress call, and the flight data shows a normal ascent up to the point where it disappears suddenly at 8,000ft. This is consistent with a catastrophic incident on board the aircraft.' 

A technical fault would heap further pressure on Boeing, which was thrown into crisis last year after two deadly crashes in five months killed 346 people. 

The 737 was less than four years old and had been checked just two days earlier, with 'one of our best crews' manning the aircraft, the Ukrainian airline said. 

Yesterday Boeing declared the air disaster a 'tragic event' and offered its 'heartfelt thoughts' to the 176 passengers and crew on board the plane.  

'We are ready to assist in any way needed,' the airline said in a statement.   

The doomed jet was a Boeing 737-800 - a very common single-aisle, twin-engine jetliner used for short to medium-range flights. Thousands of the planes are used by airlines around the world. 

Introduced in the late 1990s, it is an older model than the Boeing 737 MAX, which has been grounded for nearly 10 months following the two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. 

According to flight tracking data from FlightRadar24, the jet which crashed yesterday reached an altitude of 7,925ft before tracking suddenly ended after three minutes. 

It slammed into farmland at Khalaj Abad, in Shahriar county, about 30 miles north-west of the airport, Iranian state media said. 

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A fleet of search and rescue workers at the crash site today after a Boeing 737 crashed near Tehran, sparking fresh alarm in the Middle East 

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A map showing the route of the brief flight and some of the clues to the cause of the crash which soon started to emerge 

The plane had been delayed from taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran by almost an hour.  

Video footage appeared to show the plane already burning before it fell out of the night sky, while the fuselage was peppered with holes at the crash site.   

Authorities in Tehran are refusing to say if they will hand over the black box recorders on board the plane to outside investigators. 

According to aviation experts, only a handful of countries are capable of analyzing black boxes - notably the United States, Britain, France and Germany. 

However, Iran has indicated it will not hand the flight recorders to Boeing or the US, with which it has not had diplomatic relations for four decades.  

French jet engine manufacturer CFM said any speculation about a technical failure was 'premature', while the Ukrainian embassy in Iran initially ruled out a missile strike but later backtracked. 

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The black boxes (pictured) from the Ukrainian airliner were found today but Iran says it will not hand them over to Boeing 

Aviation experts were at odds as they struggled to explain the disaster, with some saying a shoot-down was unlikely while others said an MH17-style event should be the starting assumption.  

'The plane was in working order,' company president Yevgeniy Dykhne told a briefing in Kiev where he choked back tears. 'It was one of our best planes with a wonderful crew.'

UIA Vice President Igor Sosnovskiy likewise said chances of a crew error were 'minimal'.

Dozens of people gathered in the departure hall at Boryspil airport outside Kiev to pay their respects to the crew, five men and four women. 

A series of airlines have announced they will stop flying over Iranian airspace amid fears for Middle East security. 

Just hours before the crash, the US Federal Aviation Administration had banned US airlines from flying over Iran, Iraq and the waters of the Persian Gulf due to the Middle East crisis. 

Search-and-rescue teams yesterday combed through the smoking wreckage of the flight to Kiev, but officials said there was no hope of finding survivors.

Body bags were lined up on the ground, and the passengers' personal items - including luggage, clothes, a Santa Claus doll and a boxing glove - were scattered in the debris. 

The Ukrainian foreign ministry revealed there were 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians and three Britons on flight PS752, along with 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans and four Germans. 

The three British victims were later named as businessman Mohammad Reza Kadkhoda-Zadeh, 40, and engineers Saeed Tahmasebi Khademsadi, 35, and Sam Zokaei, 42. 

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Debris of a plane belonging to Ukraine International Airlines which had been checked just days before it crashed 

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People stand near the wreckage after a Ukrainian plane carrying 176 passengers crashed near Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran, sparking fresh alarm in the Middle East today 

Canada is home to a large Iranian diaspora community and UIA offers discount flights between Tehran and Toronto, with a transit in Kiev.     

Justin Trudeau later vowed to 'ensure that this crash is thoroughly investigated, and that Canadians' questions are answered'. The US promised 'complete co-operation' with the probe. 

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his 'sincere condolences' to the bereaved families. 

Aviation experts were divided in their assessments of the crash yesterday.  

Stephen Wright, a professor of aircraft systems at Tampere University in Finland: 'There is a lot of speculation at the moment it has been shot down - I think that is not going to be the case at all.

'Planes fly the same routes day in, day out,' he said. 'You don't tend to put... missiles next to international airways for obvious reasons.'

He added: 'It could be a bomb or it could be some sort of catastrophic breakup of the aircraft.'  

Against that, one aviation risk group said the first assumption should be that it was a 'shootdown event' like MH17 which was brought down by a suspected Russian missile over Ukraine in 2014.

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Rescue workers in protective suits gather up the bodies of passengers who were killed in the Boeing 737 crash in Iran

A statement from OPS suggested there were 'obvious projectile holes in the fuselage and a wing section'. 

'Whether that projectile was an engine part, or a missile fragment is still conjecture,' the group said. 

'We would recommend the starting assumption to be that this was a shootdown event, similar to MH17 – until there is clear evidence to the contrary.' 

Meanwhile, a former pilot and head of flight operations at Britain's Civil Aviation Authority cast doubt on the theory that a mechanical failure was to blame for the crash. 

Captain Mike Vivian told Sky News that the Ukrainian Airlines crash was a 'puzzling accident'. 

The Boeing aircraft was less than four years old and there was no sign of bad weather or pilot error, making it a 'difficult accident to explain', he said. 

'It is a puzzling accident because the normal culprits like weather, like maintenance, like old aircraft or like possibly crew training - I don't believe they're present in this case,' he said.  

'Obviously in this case they'll be trying to work out whether it broke up mid-air as indeed it appears to have done or whether it broke up when it hit the ground. 

'They'll be looking for evidence of mechanical failure, although I find it difficult, troubling to suggest that engine failure may have caused this. 

'Even with a double engine failure, these aircraft are capable of gliding - not far, but they can glide - so I find it very difficult to understand that.'

New video (center) which appears to show a missile striking the Ukrainian Airlines plane which crashed in Tehran killing 176 people on Wednesday emerged hours after Pentagon officials said they believe the jet was blasted out of the sky by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile system. Officials are 'confident' that Iran shot down the Boeing 737-800 jet after detecting a radar system being turned on before two missiles were launched, shortly before an explosion believed to have come from the jet. President Donald Trump (left) later revealed he has serious doubts the crash was caused by mechanical failure, as Iranian officials have claimed. 'It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood. Somebody could have made a mistake,' Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday. 'I have a feeling that something very terrible happened, very devastating.' Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (inset) later echoed Trump's concerns, saying that evidence indicates an Iranian missile downed the and that the strike 'may have been unintentional'. Photos of the crash site (right) appa