Iranian Defense Minister: Ukrainian plane's black box damaged

The fate of the black box of the Ukrainian plane that was shot down by a missile from the Revolutionary Guards is still unclear, and Iranian officials continue to contradict each other. One says they will not give the black box, another says they may, and the Defense Minister says the box was damaged and will be restored.

A few days after the five countries involved in the downing of the Ukrainian airliner made a firm request to hand over the plane's black box as soon as possible, the contradictions and inconsistencies of senior officials in the Islamic Republic continue.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who had recently said that Iran would not hand over the black box of the Ukrainian plane to foreign governments, claimed on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, February 20, that his words were “interrupted” and that he meant that “we have the right to read the black box ourselves. We have the right to be present at any black box investigation.”

Many Islamic Republic officials, including Zarif, have previously acknowledged that Iran does not have the technical ability and knowledge necessary to read the black box of a downed plane.

Senior officials from five countries, Ukraine, Canada, Britain, Sweden, and Afghanistan, whose citizens died in the downing of the Ukrainian plane, issued a joint statement on February 16 calling on the Islamic Republic to abide by its obligations under international agreements and to deliver the black box of Tehran-Kyiv Flight 752 as soon as possible to centers capable of reading it.

Announcement of readiness for delivery of black box

Two days after the statement was published, Fars News Agency reported, citing Mohammad Eslami, Minister of Roads and Urban Development, that if the Islamic Republic is unable to read the data from the downed plane's black box, it is prepared to send it to a third country in coordination with Kiev.

A Ukrainian airliner was hit by two Iranian Revolutionary Guards missiles a few minutes after taking off from Tehran Airport on the morning of January 8, killing all 176 people on board.

For three days, Islamic Republic officials refused to reveal the real cause of the plane's downing, despite having detailed knowledge of the accident, and engaged in continued lies and concealment.

Defense Secretary and the “significant damage” to the black box

Amir Hatami, the Minister of Defense of the Hassan Rouhani government on February 20, told reporters in a new account of the incident: "This black box has suffered significant damage and the Defense Industries Department has been asked to help reconstruct the black box. It has been decided to reconstruct the black box first and then reread it."

Apparently, the Islamic Republic is concerned that rereading the black box will reveal new information that will further expose the officials' inconsistencies about the downing of the plane.

Not long ago, Ukrainian media released an audio file of a conversation between the pilot of one of the Aseman flights and the Tehran Airport control tower at the time of the incident, which confirmed that, contrary to the claims of all Iranian military and government officials, the missile hit on the Ukrainian plane was known from the very first minutes.

Three days after the plane was shot down, Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Aerospace Force, took responsibility for the incident in a television interview, saying that the IRGC's air defense system had "mistakenly identified the Ukrainian passenger plane as a cruise missile" and fired at it.

Ukraine has recently emphasized that it is unacceptable to identify a soldier of the armed forces as the culprit for the plane crash, and that other individuals in the structure who made such an error possible must also be held accountable.

A few days ago, Canadian lawyers representing the survivors of a number of victims filed a lawsuit against some senior officials of the Islamic Republic, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and a number of senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. The case demands that Iran pay 1.5 billion Canadian dollars (equivalent to 1.1 billion US dollars) in compensation.

Iran's concern about referring the case to international courts

On February 20, Laya Junaidi, the Vice President for Legal Affairs, announced Iran's efforts to prevent the case from being referred to international courts and expressed hope that this issue would be eliminated once the joint investigation committee reaches results acceptable to Iran and the countries involved in the incident.

According to Junaidi, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) normally follows the technical report of the joint committee, and Tehran hopes that in cooperation with this committee "the shortcomings will be resolved."

Hassan Rouhani's deputy told Borna News Agency that the government will make the necessary efforts, including "compensating the victims and treating all victims and victims of this incident equally," to prevent the case from being taken to international courts.

Given the request and emphasis of Canada and Ukraine on the need to identify and enforce justice for the commanders and officers responsible for the missile attack on the Ukrainian plane, and the lawsuit filed against Khamenei and the leaders of the IRGC, it is unlikely that this case will be declared closed soon and simply, with only the payment of compensation.

Regarding the timing of the reading of the Ukrainian plane's black box, Amir Hatami said: "The black box has suffered significant damage and the Defense Industries Department has been asked to help reconstruct the black box. It has been decided that the black box will be reconstructed first and then read.

Source: DW