Home › World › Canada presses Iran over Flight 752 recorders
Canada presses Iran over Flight 752 recorders
Summary
A look back at the diplomatic pressure for access to the flight recorders of the Ukrainian airliner shot down near Tehran.
What did Ottawa want from Tehran two months after a Ukrainian airliner was shot down? On 6 March 2020, the answer was still the flight recorders. Two days earlier, on 4 March 2020, Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne had urged Iran to allow access to the recorders of the Ukrainian passenger plane that was shot down in January.
The aircraft was Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a scheduled service from Tehran to Kyiv. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after takeoff. All 176 people on board were killed.
Why the recorders mattered
The call from Canada's top diplomat kept the focus on the flight recorders, the devices that hold data from the aircraft's final minutes. As of 6 March 2020, the appeal for access to them was the most recent public step reported in the diplomatic exchange between Ottawa and Tehran.
The episode linked Canada, Iran and Ukraine through a single aircraft: an Iranian military force had downed a plane operated by a Ukrainian airline, and Canada was pressing Iran to open up access to the evidence.
