"According to our investigations, Iran, Ukraine, and many other countries are not able to decode the black box due to the aircraft's modern technology," he said, "Iran can deliver it to a French or any other foreign company with the required technology for its decryption but we have to make sure that there are no risks of abuse of the black box."
He informed that negotiations with Ukraine on transferring the black box to its accorded destination for decryption are underway but not finalized.
Baharvand added that technical investigations in Iran are on their final stages and the Islamic Republic is well-informed of the details of the incident.
We do believe that decoding the black box will add nothing special to Iran's pool of information about the incident, he noted, Our investigations are comprehensively conducted and we know exactly what has occurred to the flight.
The deputy minister also noted that Iran has had a warm technical cooperation with other countries on the Ukrainian flight issue and the subject has not been politicized at all.
As reported, the Civil Aviation Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CAO.IRI), the agency has requested French and US accident investigation agencies, the BEA and NTSB, respectively, to provide a list of the equipment required to decode the black boxes and to examine the possibility of transferring them to Iran.
However, neither organization has “so far responded positively” to the request, adding Iran is considering the purchase of that equipment.
The Tehran-Kyiv flight was unintentionally shot down by an Iranian air defense unit shortly after taking off from Tehran on January 8, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board.
The Iranian operator was reported to have mistaken the Boeing jetliner for a cruise missile.
The incident came as Iranian air defenses were at the highest level of alert following the country’s missile attacks against US bases in Iraq, which came in retaliation for Washington’s assassination of senior Iranian commander Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani.
HJ/4942725
21:54 - 2020/06/06
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