The flight recorders of the Ukrainian International Airlines jet, which was accidentally shot down by Iran’s air defenses, will be sent to Kiev, the head of the Iranian investigative team has told local media.
Hassan Rezaeifar told Tasnim News Agency on Saturday that once the flight recorders are transported to Kiev, experts from the US, Canada and France will work to extract the data from them.
If they fail, the black boxes will be sent to a lab in France. Rezaeifar previously stated that Iran lacks technical expertise to extract the necessary flight data on its own.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier urged Tehran to grant Kiev’s experts access to the black boxes.
An Iranian air defense unit shot down the Kiev-bound airliner on January 8, after mistaking it for a US cruise missile in the middle of an intense flare-up of tensions with Washington. All 176 people on board were killed.
