Iran refuses to hand over black box from crashed Ukrainian plane to Americans

TEHRAN: Iran has decided not to hand over planemaker Boeing the black box  from Ukraine's passenger plane, which  crashed earlier today killing  all 176 on board, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Iran's aviation authority has said it would not hand over to Americans the recovered black boxes of a Ukraine International Airlines 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.

"It's not yet clear which country the black box will go to for the investigation," he said.

"This accident will be investigated by Iran's aviation organisation but the Ukrainians can also be present during the incident´s investigation," he added.

The Ukraine International Airlines aircraft crashed on Wednesday morning shortly after it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. All 176 passengers on the flight were killed in the crash.

An earlier statement on the crash from the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran said the crash had occurred due to engine failure. However, a second statement from the embassy omitted the word engine failure from its statement, saying that previous comments made regarding the cause of the crash were not official.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk announced a ban on all flights from Ukraine's airlines through Iran's airspace starting tomorrow (Thursday).

Airlines have swung into action to avoid using Iran and Iraq's air spaces after Irani forces launched multiple ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq housing US and coalition forces.

Qantas, Etihad, Singapore Airlines and Emirates have announced they will change their flight paths to avoid the two countries' air spaces.

Iran said it had attacked the military bases in retaliation for the killing of its Al Quds commander, Qassem Soleimani. The Iranian general was killed at the Baghdad international airport on Friday by a US strike ordered by President Trump, triggering tensions between Washington and Tehran.

The US claimed it had killed Soleimani as he had orchestrated attacks on American troops in Iraq and was responsible on the attack on the US embassy in Iraq earlier.

Iran had vowed to take 'severe revenge' from the United States for killing Soleimani, who was a celebrated commander in the country credited with enhancing the country's influence in the Middle East and defeating militias hostile to Tehran.