Another Document Shows Iranian Officials’ Lies About Ukrainian Aircraft; Control Tower Was Aware During Missile Launch

More than three weeks after the Ukrainian passenger plane was downed in Tehran’s airspace by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a new audio file has been released containing a conversation between the control tower and a pilot of a flight operating simultaneously with flight 752. The file shows that Iranian officials were aware of the missile launch from the very beginning, contrary to their claims.

According to a video released by a Ukrainian news agency and subsequently shared on social media, the voice of flight 3768 pilot can be heard communicating with the tower about preparations for landing at the airport.

In his conversation, the pilot says that “a series of lights like missiles” were observed, though he could not pinpoint the exact location, but said he thought they were around the Parandis-Karaj area.

Following this conversation, the control tower sent messages 9 consecutive times to the Tehran-Kyiv flight, but received no response from flight PS 752 Tehran-Kyiv. Later in the audio file, the pilot whose conversation was released reports an “explosion” and says they saw “a very large light.”

The release of this conversation file comes as officials from the country’s aviation organization, the government, and Hassan Rouhani as president had announced that they were unaware of the missile launch and only found out about it several days later.

The missile strike on the Ukrainian aircraft carrying 176 passengers occurred on December 8th by the IRGC. The Joint Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces admitted to the missile strike on December 11th, three days after the tragedy.

However, not only have the perpetrators not been prosecuted to this day, but prior to the release of this audio file, government spokesman Ali Rabiei had stated that “none of the government officials, including the president, were aware until Friday evening of the actual cause of the plane crash, which was unintentional friendly fire.”

However, following the release of this audio file, Hassan Rezaei Far, director general of accidents at Iran’s aviation organization, called the document “confidential” and said that “this Ukrainian action caused us to no longer provide them with any documents.”

These statements come even as Iranian officials have so far refused to hand over the black boxes of the downed aircraft to Ukraine and Canada.

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while expressing hope for Iran’s cooperation in investigating the circumstances of the Ukrainian airline crash in Tehran, called for the investigation to be concluded as soon as possible.

Mr. Pompeo said: “We need to investigate this plane issue very quickly and completely. I have seen the reports. I can only say that we need to know the facts very soon.”

Source: Voice of America