MSGID: 2:292/854 1a23173d
The Iranian authorities are not going to send the black boxes of the shoot
down Ukrainian passenger plane to Kiev.
 
Yesterday it sounded that the black boxes were going to Kiev for
investigation, but Tehran is now backpedaling on this for unknown reasons.
"The flight recorders are in Iran and will not be handed over to anyone yet,"
said the spokesperson for the aviation authority, Hassan Rezaeifar.
 
Troops from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a plane
from Ukraine International Airlines on January 8. All 176 people on board were
killed. The shooting of the Ukrainian plane happened several hours after Iran
fired rockets at Iraqi bases that are also used by the United States.
 
Those attacks were a retribution for the American attack on top Iranian
general Qassem Soleimani. According to the Iranian authorities, everything was
prepared to accommodate an American counterattack, and they mistakenly took
the Ukrainian plane for a threat.
 
The investigation on the black boxes of the Ukrainian aircraft will now be
done in Iran itself. The black boxes would only be sent to Ukraine or France
if the investigation turned out to be technically impossible. "But nothing has
been decided yet," said Rezaeifar.
 
Rezaeifar said on Saturday that the investigation was not possible in Iran
because the country does not have the necessary software to download the data.
It is unclear whether that is suddenly possible.

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