Video seems to show when plane struck by missile

A luminous point which moves at high speed. An explosion. A burning object that changes course: a video obtained by an Iranian activist clearly shows the moment when the Boeing 737 Ukraine International Airlines was struck by what is, according to Canada and the United Kingdom, an Iranian surface-to-air missile . The New York Times and investigative site Bellingcat say they confirmed the authenticity of the video.

You can watch a great annotated video put together by @JakeGodin of Newsy here, showing the various objects and events of the brief clip: pic.twitter.com/lwRfStVoGP

From London, Iranian activist Nariman Gharib obtained the video on Thursday from a source whose identity he did not specify, and then provided it to several media outlets. The New York Times and Bellingcat analyzed the metadata (time and geolocation) and compared the surrounding buildings with recent satellite images. The 10 seconds that elapse between the impact flash and the sound place the object at just over three kilometers in an area that corresponds to the flight path recorded by the FlightRadar24 site.

Iranian fire that could be accidental

"We have information from multiple sources, including from our allies and our own services" which "indicates that the aircraft was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. It may not have been intentional, "said Justin Trudeau on Thursday. Boris Johnson said he had "a set of information" that the plane "was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile", and "it may well have been accidental". Earlier, American intelligence had raised this hypothesis with a “high level of certainty”.

Tehran, for its part, denounced "dubious scenes" from the West, calling on Ottawa to share its information with the Iranian commission of inquiry. In another press release, government spokesman Ali Rabii said that France, as the country of the manufacturer of the device's engine (the industrialist Safran), "can take part in the investigation".

Tehran also says it is ready to associate experts from all the countries who lost nationals in the disaster to the investigation. This left 176 dead, mainly Iranian-Canadians, but also Afghans, British, Swedes and Ukrainians. The tragedy came hours after Iranian missile strikes on Iraqi bases used by the United States military, in response to the strike that eliminated General Soleimani last week.

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Boeing 737 "shot down by Iranian missile," say Justin Trudeau and Boris Johnson

• Plane crash
• Crisis in Iran
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