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The flight recorders still out of reach, March 2020
Summary
A look back at the diplomatic pressure over the black boxes of the Ukrainian airliner shot down near Tehran.
What did the world still not know about Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on 6 March 2020? Two days earlier, on 4 March, Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne had urged Iran to allow access to the flight recorders of the Ukrainian passenger plane that was shot down in January.
The flight was a scheduled service from Tehran to Kyiv, operated by Ukraine International Airlines. On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 flying the route was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after takeoff. All 176 people on board were killed.
By early March, the recorders remained the focus of the appeal from Ottawa. Canada's foreign minister pressed Tehran to grant access to them, nearly two months after the destruction of the aircraft.
The appeal showed that the question of the flight did not end with the loss of life on 8 January. Governments connected to the victims continued to press Iran in the weeks that followed, and the recorders were at the centre of that pressure.
