PARIS / OTTAWA (Reuters) – Investigators examining the black boxes of the Ukrainian plane accidentally shot down by Iran will begin analyzing the recovered voice and flight data on Tuesday, France’s BEA accident investigation office said on Monday.
A view of the flight recorder of the Iranian airline PS752 Boeing 737 plane shot down by Iranian missiles from International Airlines (UIA), as work begins at the BEA research office in Le Bourget, France, on July 20, 2020 in this image obtained from social networks. Twitter @BEA_AERO through REUTERS
Iranian forces say they shot down Ukraine International Airlines’ Boeing 737 plane on January 8 after mistaking it for a missile amid mounting tensions with the United States. The 176 people on board, including 57 Canadians, were killed.
BEA said on Twitter that both CVR and FDR data have been “successfully downloaded”, referring to the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.
He did not elaborate on the content of the CVR audio, which records the pilots’ verbal communications and other cockpit sounds. Disclosure of any additional information is a matter for the Iranian authorities leading the investigation, a BEA spokesman said.
Iran agreed in June to send the recorders to the BEA for analysis, ending a long standoff with Canada, Ukraine and France.
Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne expressed doubts about an interim report by the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization blaming misalignment of a radar system and the lack of communication between the air defense operator and its commanders, including the downing of the plane. [nL5N2EJ0GG]
“I don’t put much credibility in that report. It is not just the result of human error, I think it would be an oversimplification of what really happened, “he told Reuters by phone.
“We need to understand who the responsible people are, who gave that order, how the airspace could still be open, how these missiles were fired.”
The plane was shot down hours after Iran fired missiles at Iraqi air bases that house US forces in retaliation for the murder of a senior Iranian commander by US drones.
Data extraction is being carried out with an Iranian researcher and observed by Canadian, American, Swedish and British experts and representatives from UIA, BoeingPROHIBITION) and the engine manufacturer Safran (SAF.PA)
Kathy Fox, chair of the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB), called the data extraction “a big step forward,” adding in an interview that “the next step, of course, would be to validate that data, verify its quality”.
Global rules governing aircraft accident investigations make the country where an accident occurs responsible for the investigation.
Fox said Canada wants to revise those rules, known throughout the industry by their legal name “Annex 13”, for future accidents in which a country is asked to investigate its own army.
“We believe that Annex 13 needs to be reviewed and revised to address these very specific situations,” said Fox, who did not specify how it should be changed.
Reports by Laurence Frost in Paris, David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Mark Heinrich and Dan Grebler edition
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