TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran will “likely” send the black box from a Ukrainian airplane it mistakenly shot down to France, ISNA News Agency reported on Sunday.
The plane, designated Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, was hit by missiles fired from an air defense system near Tehran on January 8. All 176 passengers on board were killed in the crash.
Iran said at the time the plane was mistaken for a missile as the country was in high alert, having fired retaliatory strikes at US targets in response to a US drone strike that assassinated Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.
According to ISNA, the decision to send the box to another country, such as France, was the fault of Ukraine, as Iran had made an offer to Kiev regarding the box.
“Following the Ukrainian side’s delay in responding to Iran’s offer regarding the Ukrainian plane’s black box, the Iranian authorities have decided to send the black box to another country, probably France,” the ISNA report said.
The report did not elaborate on when Iran plans to hand the black box over.
In March, Iran agreed to send the black box from the downed jetliner to Ukraine for analysis.
Farhad Parvaresh, who heads Iran’s delegation at the UN’s Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization, said at the time that Iran had invited other interested countries to participate in reading the data, effectively opening the door to the United States, Ukraine, Canada and ICAO itself. Air crash investigations are usually left to ICAO’s 193 member states.
Iran had also made it clear that it would transfer the box to France if need be.
Under UN rules, Iran retains overall control of the investigation while the United States and Ukraine are fully accredited as the countries where the jet was, respectively, built and operated.
Reuters contributed to this report.
- source : Iran Daily, Irannews
