NEUTRAL TERRITORY

Black Boxes From Downed Ukrainian Plane Will Be Sent to France

Iran asked Ukraine, Sweden, Britain, Canada and the U.S. to send the black box to an impartial laboratory, and the only country they could all agree on was France.

The black box recordings of the Ukrainian airliner shot down near Tehran will be sent to France to be downloaded, the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization’s Accident Investigation board confirmed on Saturday. Hassan Rezaeifar told Iran state news agency IRNA that while Iran offered the use of its own facilities to examine the content, it will send it instead to France “so that any possible damage to the data could be avoided.” Rezaeifar said Iran asked the countries with legitimate interests in the accident—Ukraine, Sweden, Britain, Canada, and the U.S.—to send the black box to an impartial laboratory, and the only country they could agree on was France. The decision to send the black box to France was made before Iran admitted to accidentally downing the passenger jet, IRNA confirmed.