Black boxes from downed UIA plane arrive in France – media
"The black boxes of a Ukrainian passenger plane Iran forces mistakenly shot down in January have arrived in France, French air investigators said on Saturday," AFP reports.
A source at France's Bureau for Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) said the boxes had arrived and would be at the agency from Monday.
A 20-member international team will examine the boxes.
Mohsen Baharvand, an aide to Iran’s foreign minister, earlier said that the downed jet’s black boxes were transported to Paris on Friday, accompanied by Iranian civil aviation and judicial officials.
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.
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.
The International Coordination and Response Group for the Victims of Flight PS752 Crash insisted on the transfer of flight recorders to France which has the necessary technical capabilities for decoding them.
Six people charged with the downing of flight PS752 were detained in Iran.
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