Iran's missiles may have shot down Ukrainian plane, say world leaders, call for probe

As suspicions deepen on the role of Iran in the crash of a Ukrainian airliner, leaders of the US, UK and Canada have called for a thorough investigation into the incident that claimed all 176 lives on board.

According to reports, the crash took place a few hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two US airbases in Iraq.

Inadvertent attack?

While US president Donald Trump was one of the first leaders from the West to have suggested that Iran might have “mistakenly” shot the plane down, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday quoted intelligence inputs to assert that the crash was caused by an Iranian missile.

“We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence that indicates the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile,” he said, however, adding that the incident could have been “unintentional”.

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In a statement, Britain’s prime minister Boris Johnson has also said that there is now a “body of information” that the airliner was shot down by an Iranian missile.

“This may well have been unintentional. We are working closely with Canada and our international partners and there now need to be a full, transparent investigation,” he said.

But unnamed officials told US media that satellite, radar and electronic data indicated Tehran’s air defense units downed the aircraft. ABC News reported that an unnamed official said it was “highly likely” the plane was brought down by two SAMs.

Iran calls it ‘psychological warfare’

Iran on its part has denied the allegation and called it “psychological warfare against” it.

“All these reports are psychological warfare against Iran. All those countries whose citizens were aboard the plane can send representatives and we urge Boeing to end its representative to join the process of the investigation the black box,” the state TV quoted Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei as saying on Thursday (January 9).

The country, however, has invited the US, Ukraine and Boeing, to join the investigation. Iran’s foreign affairs spokesperson Abbas Mousavi said that investigation has been launched based on international guidelines set forth by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Reports say, the Iranian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has also invited the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to visit the crash site.

Confirming the invite, the US National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday said that it will join the probe into the matter.  “The NTSB continues to monitor the situation surrounding the crash and evaluate its level of participation in the investigation,” a statement by NTSB said.

Investigations underway

Ukraine has also urged its international partners to provide evidence to help with the investigation and called for the United Nations’ support for a broad investigation. It has sent 45 crash investigators to Tehran to take part in the inquiry led by Iranian authorities. Investigators are pursuing several possibilities, including engine failure, a missile strike or an act of terror. “If any country has information that can help conduct a transparent and objective investigation into the tragedy, we are ready to receive it and cooperate in further verification,” the Ukraine presidency said in a statement.

Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran’s civil aviation organisation and deputy transport minister, said Iran and Ukraine were “downloading information” from the aircrafts black boxes retrieved from the crash site.

“But if more specialised work is required to extract and analyse the data, we can do it in France or another country,” he said.

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Analysts were examining photographs posted online of the wreckage and a private video apparently taken of the flight when it was struck for evidence that it was downed by a missile. “I think this has a very good possibility of being accurate,” John Goglia, a former US aviation safety expert on the National Transportation Safety Board, said of the missile theory.

“Airplanes that have just taken off and have made a climb to 8,000 feet, that’s entering the safest period of time in the flight. So even an engine failure at that altitude should not cause the type of event we’ve just observed,” AFP quoted him as saying.

The Kiev-bound Boeing 737 aircraft went down in the dark just minutes after take-off, with no radio message from the pilot to indicate distress, according to the Iranian Civil Aviation Organisation. It was carrying 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons.

(With inputs from agencies)