Ottawa/Washington - A Ukrainian airliner
that crashed in Iran, killing all 176 people aboard, was likely
brought down by an Iranian missile, Canada's prime minister,
Justin Trudeau, said on Thursday, citing intelligence from
Canadian and other sources.
The destruction of the airliner, which carried 63 Canadians,
"may well have been unintentional," Trudeau told a news
conference in Ottawa.
"We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our
allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the
plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile," he
said.
The Ukraine International Airlines flight to Kiev from
Tehran crashed on Wednesday hours after Iran fired ballistic
missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq, and Iranians were on high
alert for a U.S. military response. https://tmsnrt.rs/36Fn26m
Trudeau said his government would not rest until it had
obtained closure, transparency, accountability and justice.
Earlier on Thursday, a U.S. official, citing an extensive
review of satellite data, said Washington had concluded with a
high degree of certainty that anti-aircraft missiles brought
down the plane. The official said the Boeing 737-800 had
been tracked by Iranian radar.
The U.S. government believes Iran shot down the plane by
mistake, three U.S. officials told Reuters.
The data showed the plane was airborne for two minutes after
departing Tehran when the heat signatures of two surface-to-air
missiles were detected, one of the officials said.
That was quickly followed by an explosion in the vicinity of
the plane, the official said. Heat signature data then showed it
on fire as it went down. Heat signatures are infrared emissions
detected by U.S. military satellites.
The New York Times said it had obtained and verified a video
that appeared to show an Iranian missile hitting a plane near
Tehran airport.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau participates in a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the Ukraine International Airlines plane crash in Ottawa, Ontario. The civilian Ukrainian jetliner crashed near Tehran late Tuesday, killing all 176 people on board. Picture: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP
'PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE'
Iran denied that the airliner had been hit by a missile.
"All these reports are a psychological warfare against Iran
... all those countries whose citizens were aboard the plane can
send representatives and we urge Boeing to send its
representative to join the process of investigating the black
box," government spokesman Ali Rabiei said in a statement.
An initial report issued by Iran's civil aviation
organisation on Thursday said the 3-year-old airliner, which had
its last scheduled maintenance on Monday, encountered a
technical problem shortly after takeoff and started to head
toward a nearby airport before it crashed.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, U.S. President
Donald Trump said he did not believe the crash of the airliner
was due to a mechanical issue.
"It's a tragic thing. But somebody could have made a mistake
- on the other side," Trump said.
Riki Ellison, a defense expert and founder of the Missile
Defense Advocacy Alliance, said the radar signature of a Boeing
airliner would have been quite similar to a large U.S. military
transport plane.
"They (the Iranians) were on full alert to shoot down
anything that resembled a U.S. aircraft. Somebody made a
mistake by identifying it as a warplane," Ellison said.
Once the missiles were fired, it would have been impossible
to divert them, even if the ground operators realized their
error, he said. "Once you shoot those things, it's over."
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have risen since
Trump ordered the U.S. drone killing of a top Iranian general on
Friday. Trump has refrained from ordering more military action
and Iran's foreign minister said the strikes on Iraqi bases that
house U.S. forces had "concluded" Tehran's response.
Members of Montreal's Iranian community attend a vigil, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2019 in downtown Montreal. Picture: Andrej Ivanov/The Canadian Press via AP
TECHNICAL PROBLEM
Investigations into airliner crashes require regulators,
experts and companies across several international jurisdictions
to work together. It can take months to fully determine the
cause and issuing an initial report within 24 hours is rare.
The Ukrainian airliner took off at 6:12 a.m. and was given
permission to climb to 26,000 feet (7,925 m), Iran's report
said. It crashed six minutes later near the town of Sabashahr.
There was no radio communication from the pilot and the
aircraft disappeared from radar at 8,000 feet (2,440 m), the
report said.
Bodies and body parts recovered from the site of the crash
were taken to the coroner's office for identification, it said.
Smouldering debris, including shoes and clothes, was strewn
across a field where the plane crashed. Rescue workers in face
masks laid out scores of body bags.
Ukraine had outlined four potential scenarios to explain the
crash, including a missile strike and terrorism. Kiev said its
investigators wanted to search the crash site for possible
debris of a Russian-made missile used by Iran's military.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it had been
invited by Iran to the accident site and was making travel
arrangements.
Iran has formally invited the U.S. National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) to take part in its investigation and the
agency has agreed to assign an investigator, an Iranian official
told Reuters.
The NTSB said it had designated an accredited representative
to the investigation. "The NTSB continues to monitor the
situation surrounding the crash and evaluate its level of
participation in the investigation," it said in a statement.
Boeing Co said it would support the NTSB in the
investigation. The company is still reeling from two deadly
crashes of 737 MAX planes in five months that led to the plane's
grounding in March 2019. The 737-800 that crashed was built in
2016 and is the prior generation of the 737 before the MAX.
Boeing has built about 5,000 of those planes, which have a good
safety record.
The FAA had banned U.S. carriers from operating in the
airspace over Iraq, Iran, the Gulf of Oman and the waters
between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the hours after Iran's attack
on U.S.-led forces in Iraq. Several other airlines also diverted
flights.
OPSGROUP, which advises airlines on safety matters, said
that after the comments from Trudeau and U.S. officials pointing
to a missile downing, some flights inbound to Tehran were turned
around and diverted. The group advised operators not to fly to
airports in Iraq or Iran and said traffic flow over the
countries had greatly declined in the past 48 hours.