Iran Claims Ukrainian Airliner Crashed Due to Onboard Emergency

Confusion continued to mount on Thursday regarding the crash in Tehran of a Ukrainian International Airlines passenger plane, with a preliminary report from Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization claiming that the Boeing 737 never made radio contact after turning back toward the airport due to an unexplained sudden emergency. The report also confirmed that the flight’s data-recording “black boxes” had been recovered but said that they had been damaged and parts of their memory erased. Iranian officials have made clear that they will not share any of the information with Boeing or the US National Transportation Safety Board. The jet crashed on Wednesday shortly after takeoff, killing 176 passengers and crew members, and raising speculation that it might have been mistakenly downed by Iranian forces in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ missile assault on US targets in Iraq. Ukrainian officials initially said the plane had crashed due to a mechanical failure but have since widened the list of possible causes. Ukrainian investigators have arrived in Iran. Many commercial airlines have started rerouting flights across the Middle East, with the Associated Press reporting that this could impact up to 15,000 passengers per day and lengthen regional travel times by an average of 30 to 90 minutes.