They met on a flight to Germany, both bound for Tehran, drawn together by their shared grief.
One from Edmonton, the other from Toronto, both focused on reaching their homeland in Iran, the scene of this week's airliner crash.
Standing side by side in Frankfurt Airport, connected by a shared set of earbuds, Mohammad Javad Soleimani Meimandi and Alireza Ghandchi talked about their pain with CBC News.
"I lost all of my family — my son, my daughter and my wife," Ghandchi, who lives in Toronto, said while they waited to catch a flight for Istanbul, the next leg of the journey.
The crash killed his wife, Faezeh Falsafi, his daughter, Dorsa Ghandchi, and his son, Daniel.
"I don't have anything now, and I lost all of the things in the world," he said. "I don't know how I can continue my life.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/iran-plane-crash-canada-1.5422899