Iran calls for countries not to politicize data from downed Ukrainian jet

Iran is calling on all countries involved to refrain from politicizing data analysis from the blackboxes of a Ukrainian passenger plane that Tehran said it accidentally shot downed in January, the Nournews website quoted the head of the country’s Civil Aviation Organization as saying on Sunday.

The passengers and crew of the Ukrainian airliner were still alive 19 seconds after being hit with the first of two missiles, according to data retrieved from the airliner’s black boxes, an Iranian official said Sunday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on January 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Tehran later acknowledged as a “disastrous mistake” by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.