TORONTO -- French aviation safety investigators have successfully downloaded data from the cockpit voice recorder of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, says the chair of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
Flight recorders were sent to Paris for data extraction, a process that began Monday and is being observed by a number of countries, including Canada.
Kathy Fox, chair of the TSB, told CTV News Channel that flight data will help to confirm the sequence of events that occurred Jan. 8, when two missiles deployed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard stuck the Boeing 737-800 that had 176 people onboard.
That included 55 Canadians, 30 permanent residents of Canada, and dozens more with connections to this country.
Because Iran was the site of the crash, it is leading the investigation.
The data extraction process is also being observed by Swedish, British and American air accident investigators, along with representatives of the airline, Boeing and the jet’s engine maker Safran.
“That being said, our role in this investigation is quite limited, to one of being able to visit the accident site, which we did, as well as receive information that they’ve approved for release,” said Fox.
“We continue to ask for a higher status that allow us more active participation in the investigation, but that remains to be seen.”
The plane had just departed Tehran’s airport and was en route to Kyiv when it was shot down.
Iran only agreed to send the black boxes to France last month, following months of international pressure.
Global Affairs Canada said Monday the delivery of the black boxes to France’s aviation investigations bureau “is long overdue, and is only a step towards completing the safety investigation.”
It said the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752 will “continue working to ensure transparency, accountability and justice, including reparations, for the families of the victims of this terrible tragedy.”
That international group includes Afghanistan, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
Fox says the waiting “must be excruciating” for loved ones of the victims and that the TSB is doing all it can to ensure they get the answers they deserve.
After initially denying responsibility, Iranian military forces admitted they mistook the jet for a missile at a time of tension with the United States. In a report issued July 11, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization blamed the incident on a misaligned missile battery and a lack of communication between soldiers and commanders.
The same night the jet crashed, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched a missile attack against U.S. soldiers in Iraq, in retaliation for an American drone strike that killed Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3.
Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and Global Affairs Canada responded to the report by saying Canada would hold Iran to account, demanding it immediately conduct “a comprehensive and transparent investigation” following international standards.
Fox says the TSB continues to analyze Iran’s report “but we can’t independently confirm the validity of what’s in there.”
She said it provides some information, but “also sparks a whole bunch more questions that need to be answered to explain why, and more importantly, what needs to be done to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.”
Fox says three key questions remain outstanding: why were missiles launched against a civil aircraft, why wasn’t the airspace closed in a time of conflict, and why commercial airlines such as Ukraine International Airlines continued to operate there.
The shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 on July 17, 2014, which led to the deaths of 298 people, initiated the same questions, says Fox. But lessons learned have not been fully implemented to improve safety, particularly for civil airlines flying in conflict zones.
Pierre-Henri Chuet, a former fighter pilot with the French Navy and an aviation consultant and speaker, told CTV News Channel Monday that the voice and data recorders will show what transpired after jet was hit by the first missile.
“Because, from the footage, it looks like the aircraft was initiating a turnaround. Would it have been able to make it back safely after the first attack, that’s a big question.”
Chuet says there is a lot of expertise within the French air safety agency and it will be known within a couple of days whether the information on the recorders is useful.
CTV News aviation analyst Phyl Durdey says it’s unlikely flight recorders will reveal much new information. It’s already fairly clear what transpired to bring the plane down, he told CTV News Channel, with the recordings providing “definitive answers about what was happening in the cockpit” at the time.
