AngelicaNordgaard
Ukrainian media published a recording showing Iran knew it had shot the wrong passenger plane on January 8 but deliberately concealed it.
The footage, broadcast on Ukrainian media on February 2, recorded a Persian conversation between Iranian pilot Aseman Airlines and the air traffic control station on January 8. The pilot was then piloting the plane from Shiraz to Tehran and notifying the air traffic control of the explosion he witnessed.
Officials were present at the scene of a Ukrainian plane crash in Iran on January 8 Photo: AP.
"There are many bright spots like ... yes, it is a rocket. What's going on?" The pilot asked the air traffic control. "How far away? Where?" Asked the Tehran checkpoint officer.
The pilot replied that he saw a light spot from Payam airport, near the place where the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) launched the Tor M-1 rocket. The air traffic control station said it had received no news, but the pilot claimed to have seen the missile.
"It was light from a rocket," the pilot said. "Do you see anything else?", The air traffic controller asked.
"Engineer, we see a big explosion. I don't really know what it is," the pilot replied.
In a televised address Monday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Iran had known about the accidental shooting of a Ukrainian civilian plane on the morning of January 8 but concealed it.
"The recording shows that Iran knew from the beginning that our plane was hit by a rocket," Zelenskiy said. He also asked Tehran to hand over the black box aircraft to Kiev.
Iran said the Ukrainian media published the recording as "unprofessional", as the tape was in a top-secret report handed over by Tehran to Ukrainian officials.
"We will not provide any further documents to Ukraine. This action of Kiev makes us not want to provide further evidence for them," Hassan Rezaeifar, head of the Iran investigation team, told the news agency. MEHR on 3/2.
IRGC on 11/1 admitted accidentally shooting down the aircraft with serial number PS752 of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) due to misidentification of the target. The incident killed 176 people.
The shooting down of Ukraine took place hours after Iran launched a series of ballistic missiles against two military bases with US troops stationed in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani on January 3. .
