Iran releases investigation report on Ukrainian plane crash

A Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed after taking off from the Iranian capital on January 8 was downed by two short-range surface-to-air missiles, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said in a second preliminary investigation report.
The Tor-M1 missiles were launched at the Kyiv-bound Boeing 737-800 jetliner from the north, Bloomberg reported.

The report says that the plane took off from Tehran at 6:12 a.m. local time and lost all contact with air traffic control at 8,100 feet. The aircraft disappeared from secondary surveillance radar screens at 6:15 a.m. and from primary surveillance radars at 6:18 a.m.

The retrieved flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder are “some of the most advanced equipment of their kind in the world” and Iran lacks the facilities to decode them. French and U.S. accident investigation agencies have refused to send necessary equipment to Iran for decoding the black boxes.

As reported, a Ukraine International Airlines plane (Flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after taking off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on Wednesday, January 8.

There were 176 people on board – nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK).

On January 11, Iran admitted that its military had accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accepted full responsibility for the downing of the Ukrainian airliner.

On January 20, Iran's Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami arrived in Ukraine as an official authorized representative of the Iranian government with whom negotiations were held, including on the return of flight recorders from the Ukrainian plane.