Iran postpones transfer of downed plane’s black boxes to Ukraine
Despite the previous statements, the Iranian authorities do not intend to hand over to Ukraine "black boxes" from the Ukraine International Airlines plane, which was shot down by an Iranian military missile on January 8, announced on January 19 the head of the investigation department of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization Hassan Rezaifar, Irna news agency reports.
According to him, Tehran decided to postpone the transfer of "black boxes" from the downed Ukrainian Boeing 737 aircraft because Iranian experts are still trying to decipher them.
"Other options are Ukraine and France. However, no decision has been made yet to transfer them to another country," Rezaifar said.
A Ukraine International Airlines plane making a regular flight from Tehran to Kyiv crashed in Iran on the morning of January 8. 176 people from seven countries were killed, including 11 Ukrainians (nine crew members and two passengers).
Three days after the catastrophe, Iran admitted that it had inadvertently shot down the plane using a cruise missile. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has taken respon2ibility for the incident.
On January 19, a plane with the bodies of 11 Ukrainians who died as a result of a plane crash in Iran arrived in Kyiv.