Boeing Jet Was on Fire Before Crash, Iran Says; Investigators Consider Hostile Act -- 3rd Update

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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