Canada Pressures Iran to Hand Over Black Box; “Possible Handover to France”
Canada’s transport minister says Iran has not yet handed over the black box from the Ukrainian airplane that crashed in Iran in December.
Flight 752 of the international Ukrainian airline crashed on the morning of December 8, 2019, after being struck by a missile fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Air Defense, killing all 176 passengers on board.
Marc Garneau, Canada’s transport minister, announced on Sunday, June 1, that the black box is still in Iran and we are continuing to pressure (the Islamic Republic).
Iran initially insisted that Boeing, the American aircraft manufacturer, or another country provide Iran with technical equipment so it could read the black box itself.
Eventually, after increased international pressure, Iran announced on March 11 that it was ready to hand over the black box to Ukraine or a third country within the next two weeks. Since that time, the aircraft’s black box has not been handed over.
Meanwhile, the ISNA news agency reported on Sunday that Iran, in a “new” decision, wants to send the Ukrainian aircraft’s black box “possibly” to France.
The report claims that Iranian officials “in response to the delay by the Ukrainian side in responding to Iran’s proposal regarding the Ukrainian aircraft’s black box and also to clarify the next steps to be taken in this matter,” have decided to send the black box of this aircraft to another country, possibly France.
This comes as Ukrainian officials have been demanding the handover of the black box since the first days of the aircraft’s crash.
On the other hand, Iran had announced in April of this year that the reading of data from the black boxes of the Ukrainian passenger aircraft downed in Iran would be postponed for an indefinite period due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Hassan Rezaifar, head of the accident investigation commission of the Civil Aviation Organization, had said “Currently, the Ukrainian Boeing black box is here in the Civil Aviation Organization and the Islamic Republic has invited representatives from 8 countries to travel to a laboratory in Europe to begin this process, but these countries have requested that this program be postponed to another time due to the spread of coronavirus”.
Canada and four other countries whose citizens, including dual nationals, were killed in the Revolutionary Guards’ missile attack on the aircraft, have been announcing for months that they are waiting for the handover of the aircraft’s black box.
After initial denials by military and political officials of the Islamic Republic, the Armed Forces General Staff finally announced three days later that after Iran’s retaliatory attacks on two U.S. military bases in Iraq following the killing of Qasem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, the forces “mistakenly” fired on the passenger aircraft.
Following the downing of this passenger aircraft, protests were held in several Iranian cities and, according to reports by the Judiciary branch, dozens of people were arrested in connection with these protests.
Canadian lawyers representing the victims of Flight 752 filed a case last November for compensation worth CAD $1.5 billion (USD $1.1 billion) in the courts of that country.
Source: Radio Farda
