Canada: ICAO rules on downing of Ukrainian plane ineffective and need to be changed

Following the publication of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization's report on the downing of Flight 752 by the Revolutionary Guard, a Canadian organization called on Thursday, March 19, for changes to international laws governing the investigation of air accidents.

Katie Fox, head of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa that the agency is looking to enter into discussions with ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, on the issue in the coming weeks and months.

Ms. Fox stated that the international rules governing the process of investigating air accidents, known as "Annex 13", were effective until this incident, adding that the investigation into the downing of the Ukrainian plane showed that these rules face limitations.

According to Ms. Fox, under current ICAO rules, the Islamic Republic has overall authority to investigate and investigate the causes of the plane's downing, even though the Iranian armed forces played a role in shooting down Flight PS752.

The head of Canada's Transportation Safety Board emphasized that in rare cases where a government's military is involved in downing a passenger plane, new amendments to Annex 13 will allow for the presence of independent observers and delegations of representatives from the countries involved for greater transparency.

According to Ms. Fox, the final report from the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization on the downing of the Ukrainian passenger plane does not clarify the main reasons for the incident.

He stated: "We believe that the final report published by Iran yesterday is incomplete and raises more questions than it answers the ambiguities."

On the morning of January 8, 2019, a Ukrainian passenger plane was shot down shortly after taking off from Tehran International Airport after being hit by two missiles by the Revolutionary Guards, killing all 176 people on board.

After several days of silence, the Iranian government finally admitted that Tehran's air defenses had shot down the Boeing plane, which was bound for Kiev, due to "human error."

The final report of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization, published on March 17, states that the air defense was on "ready" mode during those days due to the severe tension between Iran and the United States.

Referring to the thorough investigations into the downing of a South Korean passenger plane by Russia and the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by the United States in the 1980s, Katie Fox said: "The argument of the responsible institutions in Iran that it is impossible to investigate the military aspects of the incident is unacceptable."

He added: "Due to the lack of precise details in this report, we cannot confirm whether the new measures mentioned by the responsible institutions in Iran will actually reduce the risk to civil aviation in that country's airspace."

In another part of her speech, Katie Fox emphasized that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada does not usually comment on reports from other countries, but since "85 Canadian citizens lost their lives" in the downing of the Ukrainian plane, it has decided to comment on this matter.

Katie Fox added that the Iranian government allowed experts from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to participate in part of the investigation, but "it was much less than we had requested."

According to him, two inspectors from this organization visited the crash site and met and talked with Iranian inspectors during a six-day trip to Iran.

An inspector from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada was also present during the process of reading the data from the plane's black box, which was carried out in Paris in July.

Ukraine, whose 11 citizens were killed in the downing of Flight 752, on Wednesday described the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization's report as "a desperate attempt to hide the real reasons for the downing of the plane."

Canada also said the report did not answer fundamental questions about the reasons for the downing of the plane and called for a "comprehensive and transparent" investigation in line with international standards.

Source: Radio Farda