By Nancy A. Youssef in Washington, Aresu Eqbali in Tehran, Georgi Kantchev in Moscow and Rory Jones in Dubai
U.S., Canadian and U.K. officials believe that a Ukrainian
commercial aircraft that crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran
on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board, was downed by a
missile system fired by Iran, possibly by mistake.
"We have a high level of confidence that this was shot down by
Iran," one U.S. official said Thursday, adding that the plane was
being tracked by Iranian radar used to aim missiles just before the
system was fired. A second official said the U.S. believes Iran may
have shot down the aircraft by mistake.
The first official identified the weapon as a Russian-made SA-15
surface-to-air missile system, also referred to as the
Gauntlet.
Iran disputed the accusation, which a government spokesman
called a "big lie."
One factor contributing to the U.S. assessment was the large
field of debris at the crash site, a second official said. Planes
that crash as a result of mechanical failure have narrower debris
fields, the official said.
President Trump on Thursday said "I have my suspicions" about
the crash, voicing doubt in remarks at the White House that the
cause may have been a mechanical problem.
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.K. Prime Minister
Boris Johnson also said Thursday they believe the plane was shot
down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile system. "This may well
have been unintentional," Mr. Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa of
the crash, which killed at least 63 Canadians. He reiterated his
push for a credible probe into the cause: "I want answers."
While Canada and the U.K. said one missile was fired, the U.S.
officials said two were used.
The Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane departed
the Iranian capital's Imam Khomeini International Airport en route
to Kyiv, Ukraine early Wednesday.
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 raised
questions about whether the Ukrainian airliner was downed by a
projectile.
Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told
Iran's Channel 2 news program that it was "not possible" an Iranian
missile had hit the jet. "How would the antiaircraft system shoot
it? It wasn't a security area," he said.
Mr. Abedzadeh said that up to nine other planes were flying in
the area at the time of the crash and dozens of aircraft were at an
altitude of 25,000 feet. Eyewitness saw the plane fall to the
ground in flames, he said. "If the plane was hit by a missile it
would have exploded," he said.
Ali Rabiei, Iran's government spokesman, said the country vowed
to conduct a "fully transparent, precise, quick" investigation,
according to a statement on news agency ISNA.
"A Pentagon source who didn't want to reveal their name
bombastically reported the news that the Ukrainian plane was hit by
two missiles," he said. "When in the future it turns out that there
is no truth to this claim, no one will take responsibility for this
big lie."
Mr. Rabiei added, "We call on Boeing to send its representative
to participate in the procedure of examining the black box."
Iran earlier rejected the notion of a hostile act. "Since the
Ukrainian pilot was trying to return to the airport, a rocket,
missile strike or the country's defense system is out of question,"
said Hassan Rezaifar, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organization
commission for accidents investigation, as quoted by Iran's state
news agency. "No missile part was found in the crash scene."
Other Iranian officials quoted by the state news agency said the
plane had suffered a technical fault, that it had started to turn
back toward Tehran's airport and was already on fire before it hit
the ground. They said the jet had reached 8,000 feet before
disappearing from radar.
The investigation is expected to be particularly thorny, with
heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran over the killing of
the top Iranian general likely to complicate international
cooperation.
A spokesperson for Ukraine International Airlines didn't
immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Ukraine is interested in finding the truth. Therefore, I ask
all our international partners: if you have any evidence to assist
the investigation, please provide it," said a spokeswoman for
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A Ukrainian official said that while Ukrainian investigators
haven't reached a firm conclusion, a missile strike seems
increasingly likely.
A U.S. official familiar with the matter said Wednesday that
data transmitted via satellite indicated 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 a hostile act, said the official.
The last high-profile shootdown of a commercial airliner
occurred in eastern Ukraine in 2014, when pro-Russian separatists
battling the government downed a Malaysian plane with a
surface-to-air missile. All 298 people on board the Boeing 777
died. International investigators said later the missile was
Russian-made.
In 1988, the U.S. Navy's Vincennes warship downed Iran Air
Flight 655 with an air-defense missile. U.S. officials said they
mistook the Airbus SE A300 airliner for a combat plane they feared
would attack the ship. All 290 people on the plane died.
A report from the Iranian civil aviation regulator said the
search operation for the Ukrainian jet found the so-called black
boxes, including the flight data recorder and cockpit voice
recorder. Both caught fire in the crash and were damaged, but the
memories of the recorders remained in good condition, the report
said.
A team of 45 Ukrainian experts and officials arrived in Tehran
early Thursday and will be involved in decoding the black boxes and
identifying and repatriating bodies. The team had already collected
DNA samples from relatives of the victims in Ukraine.
"The priority for Ukraine is to establish the causes of the
crash," Mr. Zelensky said. Ukraine said the president spoke by
phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who pledged full
cooperation in the investigation, including sharing all data with
Ukrainian officials on the ground in Tehran.
However, it wasn't clear how much access U.S. investigators will
get to the crash site, given the current animosity between the two
countries. Iran's Mr. Rezaifar said the probe would be conducted
according to standards set by the International Civil Aviation
Organization, and in its initial report on the crash the regulator
said it "would like to invite all the states involved in the
accident to participate."
Based on ICAO's convention, the home country of the airline and
the makers of the plane and its major systems each are entitled to
appoint a representative to participate in crash probes. That, in
theory, includes the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and
Boeing Co.
Boeing has said it is in contact with Ukraine International
Airlines and is ready to assist in any way. Determining what went
wrong is critical to the plane maker, which already is dealing with
the grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX fleet after two fatal
crashes involving that jet.
The plane that crashed, a 737-800, is the most popular version
of the aerospace giant's workhorse jet. The model and its variants
account for around 25% of all commercial jetliners in operation,
enjoying one of the industry's best safety records.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com, Georgi
Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com and Rory Jones at
rory.jones@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 09, 2020 19:06 ET (00:06 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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