Early this morning the Ukrainian embassy in Iran put out a new statement on the crash of the Ukrainian airliner in Iran that killed nearly 180 people, omitting the previously reported ‘engine failure’ as the possible cause of the crash:
REUTERS – Ukraine’s embassy in Iran dropped an initial reference to engine failure as the cause of a Ukrainian plane crash outside Tehran on Wednesday.
It said in a second statement that the causes had not been disclosed and that any previous comments were not official.
Asked at a briefing in Kiev if the plane could have been downed by a missile, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk cautioned against speculation until the results of an investigation were known.
He also said that Ukraine had banned flights through Iranian airspace by its airliners from Jan. 9.
From all the reporting I read last night, the ‘mechanical issues’ reporting was coming from Iran’s official news agency, ISNA. It sounds like Ukraine is no longer taking Iran’s word for this and are open to the possibility that the plane was hit by an Iranian missile.
In case you missed it, here is the video of the crash which we posted last night:
Other reporting this morning indicates that both black boxes have been found, but Iran says they will not give the black boxes, which are partially damaged, to Boeing.
Ukraine is sending their own team of experts to investigate the circumstances of the crash, saying “Our priority is to establish the truth and those responsible for this terrible catastrophe.”