The head of Iran's civil aviation investigative authority, Hassan Rezaeifar, confirmed on Saturday that the flight data recorders of the Ukrainian passenger jetliner mistakenly shot down by the Iranian military last week would be sent to Kiev for decoding
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th January, 2020) The head of Iran's civil aviation investigative authority, Hassan Rezaeifar, confirmed on Saturday that the flight data recorders of the Ukrainian passenger jetliner mistakenly shot down by the Iranian military last week would be sent to Kiev for decoding.
Last week, Rezaeifar said that the flight recorders would be sent to a third country as Iran itself lacked the technology to decode the device's data. On Friday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko said that his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, gave him assurances that the black boxes of the downed Boeing 737-800 would be sent to Ukraine.
"We have held frequent meetings with the Ukrainian experts [deployed in Iran after the crash], the black boxes will be sent to Ukraine as per this country's request," Rezaeifar was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
According to the official, should the Ukrainian specialists fail to decode data from the flight recorders, the devises will be sent to France, a country with which Iran has an agreement that regulates downloading of data from black boxes.
On Saturday last week, Rezaeifar said that Iran, lacking the necessary technology to decode the crashed plane's black boxes on its own, had asked Canada, France and the United States to bring their equipment to Tehran to download the recorder's data, but they declined.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashed near Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport minutes after takeoff on January 8. All 176 people on board were killed. The crash occurred shortly after Iran launched airstrikes against US bases in neighboring Iraq. Three days later, the Iranian military admitted to unintentionally shooting down the jetliner, having confused it with a hostile cruise missile in anticipation of a retaliatory strike from the US.
