Iran No Longer Cooperating With Ukraine After Released Air Traffic Control Recording

Leaked audio suggests Iran knew immediately when a missile hit the plane

On January 8th, mystery surrounded a downed passenger plane, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. The aircraft took off from Tehran and crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 176 people on board. Initial speculation was that the plane had been shot down by an Iranian missile because the crash occurred only hours after Iran fired ballistic missiles at two military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq.

In a sea of confusion, “Iran initially denied responsibility for bringing down” the Ukraine International Airlines Flight, then claimed it was an accident and offered full cooperation with Ukraine in the investigation…until now. Earlier this week an audio clip was released which “suggested Tehran knew its missiles brought down the passenger plane” reported Fox News.

The audio clip was broadcasted by Ukrainian media of the “exchange in Farsi between the pilot of an Iran Aseman Airlines flight and air traffic control.”

“A series of lights like … yes, it is a missile, is there something?” the pilot calls out to the controller.

“No, how many miles? Where?” the controller asks.

 

The pilot responds that he saw the light by the Payam airport, near where Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Tor M-1 anti-aircraft missile was launched from. The controller says nothing has been reported to them, but the pilot remains insistent.

“It is the light of a missile,” the pilot says.

“Don’t you see anything anymore?” the controller asks.

“Dear engineer, it was an explosion. We saw a very big light there, I don’t really know what it was,” the pilot responds.

Iran said Ukraine’s release of the recordings was “unprofessional” and head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, stated “we will no longer provide any documents to the Ukrainians.” Rezaeifar continued, “this action by the Ukrainians makes us not want to give them any more evidence.” Although Tehran has admitted their missile shot down the Ukrainian passenger plane, they insist it was a “junior officer” who “mistakenly shot down the jet.” However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that “the recording, indeed, shows that the Iranian side knew from the start that our plane was shot down by a missile, they were aware of this at the moment of the shooting.”