On Friday, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevhenii Yenin claimed that preliminary analysis of flight recorders from the ill-fated flight PS752 revealed “illegal interference” led to the downing of the aircraft in January.
The post –made on Twitter – comes a fortnight after Iranian authorities agreed to turn the flight’s black boxes over to international investigators. On Thursday, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board revealed that the team had completed a preliminary analysis of the data.
“Grateful to all partners who helped bring this moment closer,” Deputy Minister Yenin wrote. “Black boxes from #PS752 were read out and deciphered successfully. The transcript confirmed the fact of illegal interference with the plane.”
He also added that his government expects to host an Iranian delegation next week for talks in Kiev.
The completion of the report was also confirmed by France’s BEA accident investigation bureau, which stated that the CVR and FRD data analysis was turned around in just four days.
On its part, Iran has attributed the downing to a “misaligned radar” coupled with “human error”. The country’s Civil Aviation Organisation has said that the incident came at a time of heightened tensions with the US, and that the operator in question had acted without permission following a lapse in communications with superiors.
The incident sparked a diplomatic row between Iran, Ukraine and several allies, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying in February that Kiev was not satisfied with the amount of compensation Iran had offered.
With many on board the flight planning to transit through Kiev en route to Toronto, 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were among the 176 people killed in the incident.
