Iran to let Ukraine or France analyse black boxes of downed jet

MONTREAL • Iran has pledged at a meeting of the United Nations' civil aviation agency to hand over black boxes from the downed Flight 752 to Ukraine or France for analysis - a move welcomed by Canada and Ukraine.

Iran's representative at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal, Mr Farhad Parvaresh, said on Wednesday that the devices would be sent to Kiev, sources have confirmed.

They are expected to contain information on the last moments before the Ukraine International Airlines jetliner was struck by a missile and crashed, shortly after taking off from the Teheran airport on Jan 8.

In Ottawa, Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne "welcomed" Iran's commitment to finally share the black boxes, saying this was "a step in the right direction by Iran".

"I take Iran at their word," he said. "But I would rather judge their actions once the black boxes are in Europe and we have our own experts... able to analyse (them)."

Ukraine's Ambassador to Canada, Mr Andriy Schevchenko, said in a tweet that his country also "welcomes Iran's decision" to hand the black boxes over, adding that if additional expertise is needed, the flight data recorders would be forwarded to France for analysis.

Iran has admitted that the two black boxes are damaged and that it lacked the technical ability to extract data from them. But it has waffled about what to do for two months.

Countries whose citizens died in the disaster - mostly Iranians, but also Afghans, Britons, Canadians, Swedes and Ukrainians - had criticised Iran's refusal to hand the plane's black boxes to Ukraine or one of the few countries capable of recovering and analysing the data they contain.

Canada had repeatedly asked Iran to hand the plane's black boxes over to Ukraine or France for expert analysis.

At the ICAO meeting, Canadian Transportation Minister Marc Garneau stepped up the pressure on Teheran, saying: "We cannot learn from the tragic shoot-down of PS752 unless all the facts are known and analysed.

"Iran must act now to arrange the readout of the flight recorders as a demonstration of continued willingness to provide a full and transparent account of this event that is consistent with their international obligations."

The ICAO also pressed Iran "to conduct the accident investigation in a timely manner" in compliance with international accident investigation provisions.

The disaster unfolded as Iran's defences were on high alert in case the US retaliated against Iranian strikes hours earlier on American troops stationed in Iraq - which were themselves in response to the US assassination of a top Iranian commander.

In the immediate aftermath of the crash, the Iranian civilian authorities insisted that the incident was likely caused by a technical malfunction, vehemently denying claims that the plane was shot down.

But in the early hours of Jan 11, the Iranian military admitted that the plane was shot down due to "human error", killing 176 people.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE