Iranian Responses to Ukraine Crash at Tehran, by Travel Radar Correspondent David Hopwood

Earlier today (Wednesday, 08 January 2020) the Iranian authorities asserted the fatal crash of the Ukrainian flight PS752 was due to a technical failure.

Ukraine’s embassy in Iran appeared to confirm the assertion. The statement read; ‘According to preliminary information, the plane crashed as a result of a technical failure of the engine. (sic) The possibility of a terrorist attack or missile strike are currently ruled out.’

© AFP via Getty

However by 10am local time, the page was no longer available from the embassy’s site and no further information was immediately available from that source. Later a new statement said that an official commission would determine the cause of the crash.

Commentators have said that it was highly unlikely that any cause could be attributed in such a short space of time, or conversely that any could be ruled out. The only reliable source of raw information in such cases would be the flight data recorders and the cockpit voice recorder- the ‘black boxes’. The aircraft appeared to climb out of Tehran normally but abruptly stopped sending data at approximately 8000 ft, suggesting some catastrophic failure.

© AFP via Getty

At a press conference later in the day, the airline said that the was ‘nothing wrong’ with the aircraft, that the aircraft was a mere three years old and that only two days previously it had undergone a scheduled technical check. The airline suspended all flights to Iran until further notice.

In a further development, the Iranian semi-official Mehr news agency reported Ali Abedzadeh, the head of the country’s civil aviation organisation, as saying that the black boxes- both of which have been found—would not be sent to Boeing. He did not say to which facility the devices would be sent.

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