Iran says won’t give Americans crashed plane’s black boxes

TEHRAN: Iran’s aviation authority said it would not hand over to Americans the recovered black boxes of a Boeing 737 that crashed Wednesday, killing all 176 passengers and crew.

“We will not give the black boxes to the manufacturer (Boeing) and the Americans,” Iran Civil Aviation Organisation head Ali Abedzadeh said, quoted by Mehr news agency.

The Ukrainian jet bound for Kiev slammed into a field before dawn at Khalaj Abad, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Imam Khomeini International Airport.

None of the 176 people on board survived, Iranian officials said.

The plane belonged to Ukraine International Airlines, which said the Boeing 737 involved in the crash had been built in 2016 and was checked only two days before it went down.

Preliminary statements by Iranian and Ukrainian authorities suggest the plane suffered an engine malfunction, though the airline did not detail any reasons for the accident.

The crash came shortly after Iran said it fired missiles at Iraqi bases in revenge for the killing of one of the Islamic republic’s top military commanders in a US drone strike on Friday.