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| The Ukraine plane |
The Ukraine plane
On Wednesday morning, a passenger plane bound for Ukraine exploded as it slammed into a field in Iran just a few minutes after its departure. The Boeing jet was operated by a Ukrainian carrier and there were at least 176 people on board. None of them survived.
There was no immediate indication that the crash was linked to recent tensions between Iran and the United States. But questions remained about the cause, and there were some contradictory statements made by officials in both Iran and Ukraine.
The aircraft's so-called black boxes might help answer some of those questions, but Iranian officials may not turn the aircraft over to Boeing, which would typically be involved in investigating what went wrong.
What happened Wednesday morning?
The Boeing 737-800, operated by Ukraine International Airlines, left Tehran International Airport at 6:12 a.m. to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and abruptly stopped the automatic transmission of flight data two to three minutes later. It remained in the air for a few minutes longer and crashed shortly before dawn.
No one has escaped. Ukraine's foreign minister, Vadym Prystaiko, said Wednesday in a statement that there were 82 Iranians, 63 Americans, 11 Ukrainians, and nine crew members, 10 from Finland, four from Iraq, three from Britain and three from Germany.
However, separate breakdowns of victims ' nationalities diverged, possibly because some passengers had dual nationalities. According to an Iranian tally, there were 147 Iranians and two Canadians.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said in a statement that he was "shocked and saddened" that the crash had taken the lives of "176 people, including 63 Canadians." "Our Government will continue to work together with its foreign partners to ensure that this incident is properly reviewed and that Canadians' concerns are answered," he added.
What about the black box?
After an accident, black boxes, the term used for flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders, can help officials analyze what went wrong, and aircraft manufacturers are typically involved in such investigations. But Abedzadeh said in an interview with Mehr that Iran would not send the recorders to Boeing, a US company.
Ukrainian officials, he said, would be involved in Iran's investigation of the accident.
Michael Huerta, a former administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said that the accident in Iran could complicate the analysis.