24 Hours (Toronto, Canada)
July 17, 2009 Friday
TORONTO EDITION

Family shattered by news of crash

BY CP

A close family friend says a Toronto woman and her three-year-old son
are among those killed in a plane crash near Tehran.

Leonard Rideout says 35-year-old Nana Antashyam was flying to Armenia
with her son, Edward Khachik, to make arrangements for her sister’s
birthday party.

He says Antashyam’s husband and brother-in-law dropped the mother and
son off at the airport Wednesday only to hear news of the plane crash
on the radio as they were driving home.

Rideout says the family had left for Tehran in early July to baptize
their son and adds Antashyam’s husband, Vahik Khachik, is shattered by
the news.

Antashyam was a classical pianist and piano teacher with the Ontario
Conservatory of Music.

The cause of the crash was not yet known. Investigators have recovered
two of the three black boxes belonging to the jetliner, which was
bound for Yerevan, Armenia.