Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Yevgeni Yenin is claiming that the data retrieved from flight P-752's recorders verifies Iran's responsibility for downing the plane on January 8, 2020 over Tehran, and called for the truth about the incident.
On Sunday, Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh, the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, announced several takeaways from the analysis of the data and cockpit talk from the plane, which was shot down by two Revolutionary Guard missiles.
"The data from flight recorders that Iran has finally decided to reveal -- eight months after the incident and a month after being decoded in France -- proves what we thought from the beginning,” Yenin told Radio Farda. “The plane had no technical problems, the pilots acted according to guidelines and two missiles by [Iran's] air defense caused its crash although it had permission to fly from military and non-military bodies.”
Ukraine expects to receive answers to all its questions during the second round of talks with Iran, Yenin said, adding, "Iran must reveal the truth, however bitter it may be.”
On July 30, an Iranian delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister for International and Legal Affairs Mohsen Baharvand held talks in Kiev with the Ukrainian authorities over the downing of its passenger plane.
Dehghani-Zanganeh also said that data analysis from the Ukrainian jet shows that the passengers and crew were not harmed for at least 19 seconds before the second missile hit the plane.
According to Dehghani-Zanganeh, during those critical seconds, the passengers remained alive and the cabin crew who realized the "unnormal situation" tried to navigate the plane, despite the serious damage caused by the missile.
Ukraine has refused the Iranian authorities' explanation of the incident as a mistake resulting from "human error" and has demanded an apology, a technical investigation of the incident in accordance with the requirement of the Chicago Convention, an impartial and independent criminal investigation to bring all the guilty to justice, and full compensation for its airliner and the families of the victims.
