This archive report was first published on 14 January 2020.
On January 13, 2020, Canadian investigators were set to arrive in Tehran to access the wreckage and black boxes of the Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 that was shot down by a missile in Iran on January 8, 2020.
According to Transportation Safety Board (TSB) chair Kathy Fox, the investigators will be allowed to participate in the downloading and analysis of the aircraft's cockpit voice and data recorders, as well as visit the crash site and the wreckage of the plane that is being reassembled in a nearby hanger.
"We do know what has happened. What we don't know is why it happened," Fox commented before listing off questions surrounding the crash that still need to be answered, including whether the missile strike was intentional or not, and why the air space was open amid heightened tensions in the region.
Earlier, Canada's foreign minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, announced that a Canadian-led group of nations that lost citizens would press Iran for an open and transparent investigation at a meeting in London on January 16, 2020.
The group, which includes foreign ministers from Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan, and Britain, will seek to maintain pressure on Iran for full access, as well as renew calls for transparency and accountability.
Long-standing US-Iran tensions have soared since January 3, 2020, when missiles fired from a US drone killed a top Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad's airport.
