On Sunday, Iranian authorities released part of the final report on the accident that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps accidentally shot down a Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 people on board.
The Iranian authorities said that an analysis of the two black boxes of the plane showed that it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart, and that the passengers were still alive for some time after the first explosion.
Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian Boeing 737 airliner in January.
The downing of the Ukrainian plane coincided with severe tension between Iran and the United States, over the successor to the assassination of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in an American strike near Baghdad International Airport.
Voices inside the plane
"19 seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of the pilots inside the cockpit indicated that the passengers were alive, and after 25 seconds the second missile hit the plane," said the head of the Civil Aviation Organization in Iran, Toraj Dehghani, Zanganeh.
The announcement by the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization represents the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading last July.
Zanganeh added that the first missile caused shrapnel to fall into the plane. This likely caused their recorders to malfunction.
He explained that representatives of the countries whose nationals were killed in the accident attended the process of collecting data from the recording devices.
And the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization published - on its website - that the announced results came against the background of recovering a number of data, including part of the cockpit talks.
Iran is holding talks with Ukraine, Canada and other countries that had citizens on board the ill-fated plane, and these countries are calling for a comprehensive investigation into the accident. But Zanganeh stressed that "the analysis of data from the two black boxes should not be politicized."
Tehran admitted that the downing of the plane was a "catastrophic mistake" by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.
Paying compensation
Iranian and Ukrainian officials have held talks on compensation for the families of the victims, and another round of talks is scheduled for next October.
Earlier, Zanganeh said that the compensation will be paid in accordance with international laws, without discrimination, and will include any group injured in the plane crash.
The plane's passengers consist of 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, 4 Afghans, 3 Germans, and 3 Britons, in addition to the cabin crew.
The Iranian General Staff said - in a statement at the time - that its air defense system shot down the passenger plane; Following human error the moment it passes over a sensitive military area.
After days of denial, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that it was responsible for the accidental shooting down of the plane.