Iran Refuses To Hand Over Crash Data, Stoking Speculation Plane Was Accidentally Shot Down

Iran will reportedly refuse to hand over black box data from the Boeing 737 that crashed over Tehran last night to Boeing, stoking speculation that the aircraft was shot down by an Iranian missile.

Video of wreckage from the crash, which shows shattered bodies and debris spread over a wide area, has surfaced on social media.

سوگواری خانواده های جانباختگان سقوط هواپیما
گروه چند رسانه ای ایران
🔸 https://t.co/n1ZUp5V19q pic.twitter.com/umpn0ui58e

— روزنامه ایران (@IranNewspaper) January 8, 2020

As we reported overnight, the 737 800, which is very different from the 737 MAX and has an excellent safety track record, crashed over Tehran just minutes after takeoff, killing all 176 people onboard.

Ukraine International Airlines said in a statement that the plane that crashed was in excellent condition, adding that it was “one of the best planes” in UIA’s fleet, and had undergone necessary maintenance just days before the crash, RT reports.

The Boeing 737-800, which was delivered to UIA in 2016, was “in excellent condition” before its last flight from Tehran to Kiev, Evgeny Dykhne, the company’s president, told reporters in Kiev, also describing the aircraft as “one of the best.” The flight, bound for the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, plunged from the sky just minutes after departing Imam Khomeini International Airport, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.

“I heard a massive explosion and all the houses started to shake. There was fire everywhere,” Din Mohammad Qassemi, an Iranian who lives near the crash site, told the AP.

“At first I thought (the Americans) have hit here with missiles and went in the basement as a shelter,” Qassemi added. “After a while, I went out and saw a plane has crashed over there. Body parts were lying around everywhere.”

Overnight, the rumor mill pointed to mechanical errors, which caused Boeing’s shares, already under pressure from the 737 MAX fallout, to slide.

UIA flight director Ihor Sosnovsky even ruled out pilot error as a potential cause of the crash, explaining that the ill-fated flight was manned by a “reinforced crew,” including Captain Volodymyr Yaponenko, Pilot Instructor Oleksiy Naumkin and First Officer Serhiy Khomenko.

All of this makes Iran’s rumored decision not to fork over the black box data more suspicious. Was the plane accidentally struck by an Iranian missile? The timing sure seems suspicious, given that the plane crashed over Iran during the same timeframe that the country was lobbing missiles at American bases in Iraq.

To us, if the plane just happened to crash over Iran just as the country was firing off missiles, well, that certainly would be one hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?