Boeing Jet Was on Fire Before Crash, Iran Says; Investigators Consider Hostile Act -- 3rd Update
January 09 2020 - 8:31AM
Dow Jones News
By Aresu Eqbali in Tehran, Rory Jones in Dubai and Georgi Kantchev in Moscow
The Ukraine International Airlines flight that crashed after
takeoff from Tehran was on fire before it hit the ground, Iran's
aviation regulator said, as the cause of the crash remained unclear
and Ukrainian authorities considered the possibility that the plane
was hit by a projectile or an explosion.
The Boeing Co. 737-800 single-aisle jet ascended to 8,000 feet
before disappearing from radar and crashing, killing all 176 people
on board, said Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran's Civil Aviation
Organization, according to the state news agency. Mr. Abedzadeh
said that before crashing, the plane turned around and headed back
in the direction of the airport. The jet was aflame as it hit the
ground and exploded, he added.
The investigation into the cause of he crash is expected to be
one of the most politically thorny probes ever. Tensions are high
between the U.S. and Iran over the killing of a top Iranian
general. Boeing is already dealing with the fallout from the
grounding of its 737 MAX fleet after two fatal crashes involving
that jet.
The cause of Wednesday's crash was unclear, and authorities in
Iran and Ukraine pointed to different possible scenarios.
Iran's minister of roads and urban development, Mohammad Eslami,
said the plane suffered a technical fault. "Rumors about the
incident being a terrorist attack, explosion or shooting at the
plane...are not true," he said.
But Ukrainian investigators were considering a number of
possible versions of events, including a strike by an antiaircraft
missile, a collision with a drone, and an explosion of an engine or
inside the aircraft as a result of a terrorist attack, said Oleksiy
Danilov, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense
Council, in a Facebook post on Thursday.
He didn't mention any evidence pointing to an attack.
A Ukrainian security official cautioned that these were
preliminary theories and no conclusions have been reached. "Too
many things are unclear at the moment," the official said. A
spokesperson for Ukraine International Airlines declined to comment
on "hypotheses."
A spokesman for Iran's aviation regulator couldn't immediately
be reached for comment on Mr. Danilov's statement.
A U.S. official familiar with the matter said Wednesday that
data transmitted via satellite indicated that everything was normal
on the jetliner until the sudden loss of data and the fatal dive.
That data suggest to some U.S. air-safety officials that there may
have been some sort of hostile act, said the person, who also
cautioned that it was too early to draw conclusions.
Boeing said it is in contact with Ukraine International Airlines
and is ready to assist in any way.
A team of 45 Ukrainian experts and officials arrived in Tehran
early Thursday and will be involved in decoding the plane's black
boxes and identifying and repatriating bodies. The team has already
collected DNA samples from relatives of the victims in Ukraine.
"The priority for Ukraine is to establish the causes of the
crash," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video
posted on his official Facebook page Thursday. "To do this, a
detailed and independent investigation will be carried out in
accordance with international law."
The crash came hours after Iran launched missile attacks on U.S.
troops at two Iraqi bases in retaliation for the killing of Iranian
Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The timing of those attacks had raised
questions about whether the Ukrainian airliner was downed by a
projectile.
In response to the Iranian strikes in Iraq, and ahead of the
crash, the Federal Aviation Administration said it would prohibit
U.S. carriers from traveling in airspace over Iran, Iraq and the
Persian Gulf. U.S. carriers don't fly to the Persian Gulf region,
but some flights skirt Iraq and Iran on the way to Asia.
Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways flights both departed from
Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport after the Iranian
strikes and before the Ukraine International Airlines flight
crashed, according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking site. Since
the strikes in Iraq, carriers including Air France, KLM and Qantas
have said they would avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
Mr. Zelensky said that he would speak by telephone with Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani to discuss the investigation and urged the
international community to join the probe.
It isn't clear how much access U.S. investigators will get to
the crash site. Hassan Rezaifar, director general of the Ministry
of Road and Urban Development for the Bureau of Accidents
investigation, said the probe would be conducted to international
standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
That would indicate U.S. companies and entities could be
involved. But Mr. Abedzadeh also told the semiofficial Mehr News
Agency on Wednesday that his organization wouldn't provide Boeing
or the U.S. access to the black box.
Based on the ICAO convention, the home country of the airline
and the makers of the plane and its major systems are each entitled
to appoint a representative to participate in crash probes.
Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com and Georgi Kantchev at
georgi.kantchev@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 09, 2020 08:16 ET (13:16 GMT)
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