Ukraine Airlines Boeing 737 crash in Iran: what we know

What caused the Ukraine Airlines Boeing 737 to crash on Wednesday? Since this accident, which left 176 victims - mostly Iranian and Ukrainian - different versions have been put forward.

• Ground-to-air missile fire?

The plane was presumably shot down by an Iranian missile, presumably in error, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday, drawing on Canadian and allied intelligence sources.

"We have information from multiple sources, including our allies and our own services," which "indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile," he said at a conference. Press. "It may not have been intentional," he added.

"This information will undoubtedly cause a new shock to the families already bereaved by this nameless tragedy," he continued. For him, these latest developments reinforce "the need for a thorough investigation", with which he wishes Canada to be associated.

His British counterpart Boris Johnson followed suit, saying there was a "body of information" that the Ukrainian Boeing 737 was "shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile". "It may well have been accidental," he said in a statement.

Without being so explicit, US President Donald Trump had earlier expressed his "doubts" on the thesis of a mechanical problem. "I have the feeling that something terrible happened," he said, referring to a possible "mistake".

• A link with Iran-United States tensions?

Defense expert Rick Ellison, interviewed by Reuters, said the radar signature of this Boeing model could have been similar to that of a large American military transport aircraft. The Iranians "were on full alert to shoot down anything that looked like an American plane. Someone made a mistake in identifying the plane as a war plane," he said.

The accident happened just hours after missiles from the Iranian army were fired on military bases sheltering American soldiers in Iraq, strikes carried out in reprisal for the targeted assassination of General Qassem Soleimani on Friday, one of the most influential figures in the Islamic Republic.

A video of about twenty seconds, which would show the moment when a missile hits the Boeing of the company UAI, has been widely disseminated on social networks. In the images, filmed at night, we can see a luminous object rapidly climbing towards the sky and striking what appears to be an airplane.

The video was published by several media, including the New York Times. There was no radio communication from the pilot and the aircraft disappeared from radar screens at 8,000 feet above sea level (just under 2,500 meters).

To analyze the video, we confirmed it was filmed near the plane's flight path from Tehran. It shows an explosion when a missile hit the plane, but the plane did not explode: It continued flying for several minutes and turned back toward the airport. https://t.co/mcwFWcpQbu

• A technical problem, according to the Iranian authorities

The Iranian government spokesman rejected "all of this information which is a psychological war against Iran".

In a preliminary report released Thursday morning, Iranian civil aviation writes that the Ukrainian Airlines aircraft, three years old and whose last technical inspection was on Monday, crashed six minutes after takeoff. The plane encountered a technical problem soon after taking off from Tehran International Airport and started to head to a nearby airport before crashing, the report said, without specifying the nature of the damage.

Iranian civil aviation official Ali Abedzadeh also scanned the scenario of an Iranian fire, finding it "scientifically impossible for a missile to hit the Ukrainian plane".

Iran has formally invited the United States Transportation Security Board (NTSB) to take part in the investigation and the NTSB has agreed to send an investigator. Tehran also offered to send Boeing a representative to take part in the black box investigation process. Only a few countries, including the United States but also Germany or France, have the technical capacity to analyze black boxes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the government was considering several plausible causes for the plane's crash. In a televised speech, he urged his compatriots not to give in to speculation, conspiracy theories or hasty conclusions.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, wrote on Facebook that Ukraine is examining four main theories: missile fire, collision, engine explosion or act of terrorism.

With AFP and Reuters

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