The Iranian authorities are not going to send the black boxes of the shoot down
Ukrainian passenger plane to Kiev.

Yesterday it sounded that the black boxes were going to Kiev for investigation,
but Tehran is now backpedaling on this for unknown reasons. "The flight recorders are in Iran and will not be handed over to anyone yet," said the spokesperson for the aviation authority, Hassan Rezaeifar.

Troops from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a plane from
Ukraine International Airlines on January 8. All 176 people on board were killed. The shooting of the Ukrainian plane happened several hours after Iran fired rockets at Iraqi bases that are also used by the United States.

Those attacks were a retribution for the American attack on top Iranian general
Qassem Soleimani. According to the Iranian authorities, everything was prepared to accommodate an American counterattack, and they mistakenly took the
Ukrainian plane for a threat.

The investigation on the black boxes of the Ukrainian aircraft will now be done
in Iran itself. The black boxes would only be sent to Ukraine or France if the
investigation turned out to be technically impossible. "But nothing has been decided yet," said Rezaeifar.

Rezaeifar said on Saturday that the investigation was not possible in Iran because the country does not have the necessary software to download the data. It is unclear whether that is suddenly possible.

--- D'Bridge 4
* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)