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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Asharq Al-Awsat

Canada Demands Answers from Iran over Ukraine Jet

Debris from the Ukraine International Airlines, flight PS752, Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed after take-off from Iran, on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran January 8, 2020. Social media video via REUTERS

Canada said it was demanding answers from Iran over the mistaken downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet after Tehran's "limited" initial report failed to explain why it fired missiles at the plane.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran's main airport on January 8.

Iran admitted days later that its forces had accidentally shot down the Kiev-bound Boeing 737-800, killing all 176 people on board, including 55 Canadians.

The Canadian government said Sunday it had received a copy of the Iranian report on the cockpit voice recorders.

"This preliminary report only provides limited and selected information regarding this tragic event," Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement.

"The report only mentions what transpired after the first missile strike but not the second and only confirms information that we already know."

"We expect the Islamic Republic of Iran to provide an answer on important questions of why the missiles were launched in the first place and why the airspace was open," they added.

"These are the questions that Canada, Canadians and most importantly, the families of the innocent victims need answered."

Iranian officials on Sunday said the cockpit voice recorder showed the pilots were still alive after the first of two missiles hit the plane.

Iran, which has no means of decoding the black boxes, sent them to France for analysis in mid-July, nearly six months after the disaster.

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