Justin Trudeau: We are pressuring Iran to send black boxes to France
The Canadian Prime Minister, expressing concern over the fate of the Ukrainian plane's black boxes, said that we will put enough pressure on Iran to force it to send this information to France. Iran admitted that it does not have the equipment to read the black boxes.
The Canadian Prime Minister once again emphasized that Iran does not have the necessary technical equipment to download and read the data from the black boxes of the downed Ukrainian plane.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke on January 21 about Iran's inability to read the flight data and stressed that the data of the recorded conversations between the pilots and the control tower should be sent to France as soon as possible. Ukrainian authorities have also requested that these conversations be handed over to them, Reuters reported.
176 passengers were killed when a Ukrainian passenger plane was shot down by two missiles fired by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Of these, 57 were Canadian citizens.
Canada insists that the plane's black boxes should be handed over to France because it is one of the few countries with the specialized facilities and equipment necessary to read the stored information and conversations between the pilot and the control tower.
Trudeau said in a media interview that the data from the plane's black boxes must be downloaded, read and analyzed as quickly as possible by "skilled and experienced experts."
He emphasized that Iran does not have the technology and equipment necessary for this task and that the black boxes should be sent to France, stressing: "The international community and we continue to pressure Iran to do exactly that."
A claim that was invalidated
Iran had previously claimed to be able to decode the black boxes on its own, but this claim was overturned by Iran's new request for help from France and the United States.
The Iranian Civil Aviation Organization today sent a list of technical equipment required to load, examine, and analyze data from the black boxes of the Ukrainian plane to the French Accident Agency (BEA) and the US National Transportation Safety Board, but according to Reuters, it has not yet received a positive response.
Prior to this request, Hassan Rezaeifar, Director General of the Accidents Office of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization, had admitted: "We used all our resources to evaluate the black box, but since the crashed plane is a modern and advanced Boeing aircraft, Iran does not have the technology to download (upload) the black box data of this plane and it may be damaged when the reconstruction of the black box begins."
MP criticizes Iranian officials' contradictory statements
Iran's delay in handing over the black boxes has also drawn criticism from some members of parliament. Bahram Parsai, a Shiraz MP in the Iranian parliament, criticized the "hasty and unprofessional speech of the head of the Civil Aviation Organization and his appointed official in the accident investigation committee" in three tweets about the crash of the Ukrainian plane, and wrote why "they, contrary to ICAO rules, declared a technical failure as the cause of the accident before reading the black boxes, and are causing more ambiguities and questioning the accident investigation committee."
The Shiraz representative asked in his tweet, "What is the benefit of contradicting yourself about whether or not to hand over the black box to the manufacturing company, other than creating confusion?"
Earlier, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board announced in a statement that Iran has no specific plans to read the black box data.
Canada had sent a six-member team of investigators to Tehran to investigate the downing of the Ukrainian plane, two of which left Iran three days ago.
The challenge of dual citizenship
The Canadian Prime Minister, who emphasizes the "accountability" of Iranian officials regarding this incident and considers the implementation of "justice" to be the desire of the Canadian people and the families of the victims, has faced the challenge of "dual nationals" in recent days.
Iranian Foreign Ministry officials recently accused the Canadian Prime Minister of being "more of a hot mess" and seeking justice and compensation for passengers who have Iranian-Canadian citizenship.
Trudeau today considered Tehran's "refusal to recognize the dual citizenship" of this group of travelers a problem and challenge.
The Boeing 737 belonging to Ukraine International Airlines that was shot down on January 8 by two missiles from the Revolutionary Guard Corps was made in the United States.
For years, Iran has not been able to purchase modern aircraft and products with US technology due to US sanctions, which has resulted in Iran's passenger aircraft fleet being from several decades ago and not being able to be modernized or rebuilt.
Source: DW
