Canada says black boxes of downed Ukrainian plane arrive in Paris

Canada's foreign minister says the black boxes of a Ukrainian plane that crashed in Iran in January have arrived in France for analysis.

According to Press TV, Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a tweet on Sunday that the boxes were expected to be taken to France’s BEA Air Accident Investigation Agency -- one of the world’s leading agencies for reading flight recorders—on Monday, adding that Canadian transportation officials would be present.

With 167 passengers and nine crew members on board, Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 crashed outside Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on January 8, moments after takeoff.

The crashed plane was carrying Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and people who had Canada as their final destination.

Iranian authorities acknowledged that the plane had been downed due to human error at a time when Iran's air defenses were on high alert due to increased hostile American aerial activity in the aftermath of Iran's missile strike on a US military base in Iraq.

The missile strike came after Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the late Commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was assassinated in a US drone attack along with his companions, outside Baghdad International Airport on direct order from US President Donald Trump.

Last week, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said the black boxes had been sent to Paris for analysis.

“The black boxes were transported to Paris yesterday by officials of the Civil Aviation Authority and a judge,” Mohsen Baharvand said Saturday.

Earlier this month, the Civil Aviation Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran said in an interim report that the mismanagement of an air defense unit’s radar system by its operator had been the key "human error" that led to the accidental downing of the Ukrainian plane.

The CAO also said the air defense unit operator had acted "without receiving any response from the Coordination Center" on which he depended.

ME