Published 15:29 IST, February 6th 2020
Canada urges Iran to send black boxes of crashed Ukrainian airliner to France
Canada on February 5 reportedly urged Iran to send the black boxes of the crashed Ukrainian airliner immediately to France where the data can be analyzed.
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Canada on February 5 reportedly urged Iran to send the black boxes of the crashed Ukrainian airliner immediately to France where the data can be analyzed. According to international media reports, the Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said that he spoke to his Iranian counterpart Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and stressed that Tehran must arrange for quick download and analysis of the flight's data recorders.
However, Iran's civil authority on Tuesday reportedly said that it would keep working with other countries investigating its downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane last month. Campagne, on the other hand, said that the preferred option is, however, for Iran to make use of the facilities offered by France with the technical capacity to do the work. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month also said that the black boxes were damaged and France was one of the few nations able to decipher the data.
Trudeau also said that Iran did not possess the ability to analyse the downloaded information and that is why the black boxes should be sent to France, however, Kyiv wanted the recorders to be sent to Ukraine. According to reports, an official of the Iranian aviation body on January 18 said that the black boxes would be sent to Ukraine but a day later after the statements, the official backtracked and said that the data will be analysed in Iran. On January 20, Iran's Civil Aviation Organization further said that if they are given the required equipment then it will be possible for them to download the data and reconstruct the series of events that took place in a short period of time.
Plane crash in Iran
All 176 people were killed after Iran mistakenly fired two short-range missiles on the morning of January 8 amid high tension between Tehran and Washington. Most of the citizens onboard the Ukranian flight were Iranians or dual citizens; 57 people among those killed were from Canada while 11 were from Ukraine.
The downing of the plane was a mistake from the Iranian military side as the accident happened hours after Tehran had fired dozens of missiles on two Iraqi military bases that were hosting the US-led coalition forces. Tehran's missile attacks on US bases were retaliatory action after Washington killed Iran's top military commander Qassem Soleimani on January 3 in a drone attack near Baghdad airport in Iraq.
(With inputs from agencies)
15:29 IST, February 6th 2020