The
Civil Aviation Organization of Iran (CAOI) reported shortly after the incident that a team of investigators had been sent to the crash site. The Ukrainian government sent 45 investigators to assist with the inquiry into the shootdown of the airliner. prepares to depart for Iran from
Boryspil International Airport with specialists from the National Bureau of Investigation of Civil Aviation and Incidents with the Civil Aviation Service, State Aviation Service, Ukraine International Airlines and from the General Inspectorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Under standard
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules, according to Annex 13 of the
Chicago Convention, the United States
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would participate in the investigation, as they represented the state of the manufacturer of the aircraft. France's
Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) would participate as representatives of the state of manufacture of the aircraft's engines (a U.S.–France joint venture) and Ukraine's
Ministry of Infrastructure would participate as representatives of the state in which the aircraft was registered. Given that there were tensions between these nations and Iran as part of the
2019–2021 Persian Gulf crisis, it was not known how these investigative organizations would be involved, although it was reported that Iran had said American, French and Ukrainian authorities would be involved. The head of the commission for accidents in the CAOI said they received no emergency message from the aircraft before the crash. It was reported that the aircraft's
black boxes (the
cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and
flight data recorder (FDR)) had been recovered, but the CAOI said it was not clear to which country the recorders would be sent so the data could be analyzed. The association said it would not hand over the black boxes to
Boeing or to U.S. authorities. On 9January, the black boxes were reported, by Iranian investigators, to have been damaged and that some parts of their memory may have been lost.
Mary Schiavo, a former U.S.
Department of Transportation inspector general, said no automated distress messages had been sent from the aircraft or by its crew. On 9 January, the
Swedish Accident Investigation Authority and
Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) were officially invited by the investigation team to participate in the probe on the crash. The NTSB, Ukraine, and Boeing were also invited to participate in the investigation. On 9 January, media reports showed bulldozers being used to clear the crash site. Some aircraft investigation experts expressed concerns about disturbing and damaging the crash site before a thorough investigation could be conducted. Iran denied bulldozing the evidence. On 10 January, the Iranian government granted Ukrainian investigators permission to investigate the flight recorders and Ukrainian investigators visited the crash site, with plans to download the recorders in Tehran. On 14 January, the head of the TSB,
Kathy Fox, said there were signs that Iran would allow the TSB to participate in the downloading and analysis of data from the airplane's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. On 23 January, the TSB announced that they had been invited by Iran to help with the flight recorders. On 2 February,
Ukrainian public TV aired a leaked recording of the information exchange between the Iranian pilot of an
Aseman Airlines flight and an Iranian air traffic controller. The pilot stated in
Persian that he saw "a series of flares like that of a missile" and later an explosion. The following day Iran ceased co-operation with Ukraine in its investigation into the disaster. Iran resumed co-operation on 15 February. In the final report about the crash, Iranian authorities gave a more complete transcript of the communication. On 5 February, Canada urged Iran to send the recorders to France. Iran denied the request. On 12 March, Iran agreed to hand over the recorders to Ukraine. However, the
COVID-19 pandemic delayed this action. During this time, impatience began to mount from Ukraine, Canada, and ICAO. On 11 June, Iran announced that the flight recorders would be sent directly to the
Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) in France. Canadian officials urged Iran to complete this action "as soon as possible", citing the previous delays in handing over the recorders. This statement was further reinforced 11 days later, when Iranian foreign minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif commented on this intention during a phone call with Canadian foreign minister
François-Philippe Champagne. On 20 July, the examination of the recorders started in Paris.
Cause of the crash On 8 January, Iran's
Road and Transportation Ministry released a statement that the aircraft burst into flames after a fire started in one of its engines, causing the pilot to lose control and crash into the ground. Iranian and Ukrainian government sources initially blamed mechanical issues aboard the aircraft for its crash. The Ukrainian government later retracted its statement and said anything was possible, refusing to rule out that the aircraft was hit by a missile. based on evidence from
reconnaissance satellite imagery and radar data. British defence officials agreed with the American assessment of a shootdown. He added that "this may well have been unintentional". On 11 January, the
Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran admitted they had shot down the airplane, having erroneously identified it as a hostile target. According to an early IRGC statement, when the airplane seemed to head toward a "sensitive military centre" of the IRGC, controllers mistook it for a "hostile target" and shot it down. Iran's Civil Aviation Organization disputed this timeline, arguing that the airplane was on the correct course all the time and there was no proven flight deviation. The CAOI's viewpoint was also supported by a Radio Canada International article that used public ADS-B flight tracking data. The flight had been delayed by more than an hour because the captain had decided to offload some luggage as the aircraft was over its
certified takeoff weight. On 11 July 2020, the CAOI reported that Iran now blamed the missile strike that downed PS752 on "bad communication" and "poor alignment". According to the Iranians, the missile battery "had been relocated and was not properly reoriented" and the guilty parties did not include the higher-ranking
chain of command officers. On 20 July, Canadian foreign minister
François-Philippe Champagne rejected the finding by the CAOI that "
human error" caused the launch of the missiles which destroyed the aircraft: "It cannot just be the result of a human error. There is no circumstance under (which) a civilian aircraft can be downed just by the result of human error in this day and age... All the facts and circumstances point to more than just a human error, so certainly we will continue to pursue vigorously the investigation." The video was published at the same time the Iranian authorities were claiming technical problems for the crash. Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran's Road and Transportation Ministry, said the pilot "lost control of the plane" after a fire broke out in one of its engines, denying the Ukrainian plane was hit by a missile. On 9 January, a video was posted on a public
Telegram channel showing what was, according to
Bellingcat, apparently a mid-air explosion.
The New York Times contacted the person who filmed the video and confirmed its authenticity. An investigation team from Bellingcat carried out an analysis of this video and geolocated it to a residential area in Parand, a suburb west of the airport. Bellingcat also examined photos from an unknown source and said these images of a missile nose cone had yet to be verified, despite claims from several sources.
Subsequent developments On 9 January, US President
Donald Trump said the airplane "was flying in a pretty rough neighbourhood, and somebody could have made a mistake on the other side." U.S. intelligence sources informed U.S. media outlets they were "confident that Iran painted the Ukrainian airliner with radar and fired two surface to air missiles that brought down the aircraft." Also on 9 January, at a news conference in
Ottawa, Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the airliner was likely brought down by an Iranian missile, citing intelligence from Canadian and other sources, and said the incident "may well have been unintentional". On 10 January, during an interview with
Sky News, Iran's
ambassador to the United Kingdom,
Hamid Baeidinejad, rejected video footage obtained by American media that showed bulldozers clearing the crash site as "absurd". Baeidinejad further denied that an Iranian missile had brought down the airplane, and said that "[p]lane accidents are a very technical issue, I cannot judge, you cannot judge, reporters on the ground cannot judge. Nobody can judge. A
foreign minister or a
prime minister cannot judge on this issue." On 11 January, Iran admitted it had shot down the Ukrainian jet by "accident", the result of human error.
General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the
IRGC's Aerospace Force, said his unit accepts "full responsibility" for the shootdown. In an address broadcast by state television, he said that when he learned about the downing of the airplane, "I wished I was dead." Hajizadeh said that, with his forces on high alert, an officer mistook it for a hostile missile and made a "bad decision". On 14 January, the
Rich Kids of Tehran Instagram account published a new video, showing two missiles hitting the aircraft. The security camera footage, verified by
The New York Times, shows two missiles, fired 30 seconds apart. On 8 January 2021, the first anniversary of the shootdown, Ukraine and several other countries made a joint statement calling on Iran for a thorough investigation and reiterated for them to prosecute anyone involved, and provide full compensation.
Final report On 17 March 2021, CAOI released the final report on the crash, which states the following: A contributing factor was: Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs
Dmytro Kuleba rejected the findings and criticized the report as "a collection of manipulations, the goal of which is not to establish the truth, but to whitewash the Islamic Republic of Iran." The Transportation Safety Board of Canada also criticized the report, saying that it did not provide an exact reason to why the IRGC fired its missiles at Flight 752. == Legal ==