Iranian officials have asked French air accident agency BEA to review the black boxes from the Ukrainian commercial airliner that was shot down in January by Iranian forces near Tehran, killing all 176 people on board.
Iranian officials initially said a mechanical problem was to blame for the fiery crash, but it was later revealed a Russian-made surface-to-air missile accidentally fired by Iranian forces was the cause of the incident, which occurred amid skyrocketing tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
The fate of the black boxes from the flight, which reveal vital data and recordings from the cockpit, has been at the center of an international dispute, with several western nations calling for the information to be released.
Iran’s United Nations envoy on Friday said that a request has been sent to the BEA (Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses or the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety when translated in English) to review the information.
“Iran’s AAIB recently made a request to the BEA that the recorders should be taken by Iran to the BEA’s premises in France to be read in the presence of representatives of other involved countries and ICAO, if the BEA is in a position to accommodate this,” Farhad Parvaresh, Iran’s representative to the U.N. agency, told Reuters in a phone call.
He explained the request from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s request was discussed at a U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization council meeting earlier this week.
• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.
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