Iran will not hand over black boxes in plane crash investigation: report
Posted January 8, 2020 3:41 am.
Last Updated January 8, 2020 6:32 am.
SHAHEDSHAHR, Iran (NEWS 1130) – Reports suggests Iran will not be handing over a key piece in the investigation of a deadly plane crash that killed 176 people on Wednesday.
According to some media outlets, the head of Iran’s civil aviation organization said the country will not send the black boxes on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight to Boeing so that its data can be analyzed.
It remains unclear what happened, but flight PS752 was taking off from Tehran’s airport when it crashed shortly after. The crash came amid escalating tensions across the Middle East, fueled by heightened rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran.
Iranian officials had said they suspected a mechanical issue brought the Boeing 737-800 aircraft down. Ukrainian officials initially agreed, however, a revised statement from the embassy in Iran later omitted that detail.
According to Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry, it appeared a fire struck one of the planes engines. The pilot of the aircraft then lost control of the plane, sending it crashing into the ground, Biniaz said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Hassan Razaeifar, the head of air crash investigation committee, said it appeared the pilot couldn’t communicate with air-traffic controllers in Tehran in the last moments of the flight, but he would not elaborate.
Authorities later confirmed they found the plane’s so-called “black boxes,” which record cockpit conversations and instrument data.
Sixty-three Canadians were among those killed in the crash, alongside people from Iran, the Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan, Britain, and Germany. There were no survivors.
This is a developing story
