Iran to send black boxes from downed UIA plane to France by July 20 – Yenin

Iran promises to send black boxes from downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 to France by July 20, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Yenin has said.

"We are closely watching this process. A couple of days ago, we received the consent from the French authorities to accept two of our experts who will take part in this technical process," Yenin said on the air of Ukraine 24 TV channel.

According to him, if a technical investigation reveals outside interference, then Ukraine will move on to the second stage of the negotiation process and will require specific compensation to the families of the victims.

The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) plane (flight PS752) heading from Tehran to Kyiv crashed shortly after it took off from the Imam Khomeini International Airport at about 06:00 Tehran time (04:30 Kyiv time) on 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). They all died.

On January 11, Iran admitted that its military had accidentally shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accepted full responsibility for the downing of the Ukrainian airliner. It emerged later that the UIA plane had been shot down by two missiles of the Tor-M1 air defense system, which Iran received from Russia.

At the ICAO Council meeting on June 26, the Iranian representatives agreed to send flight recorders to France for download and analysis by July 20.

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