Canada seeking official status in Tehran crash probe, Garneau says
Posted January 15, 2020 12:31 pm.
Last Updated January 15, 2020 5:01 pm.
OTTAWA — Transport Minister Marc Garneau says Canada is demanding official status in Iran’s investigation of the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines jet in Tehran last week.
Iran admits its air-defence forces shot the plane down, having not identified it as a commercial airliner.
All 176 people aboard were killed, including 138 people who were headed for Canada.
Garneau says two Canadian investigators are in Iran as part of an international team and have been getting good co-operation, but he wants their participation in the probe formalized.
He says the plane’s “black boxes” are in Iranian hands, but another two investigators are ready to go wherever and whenever the recorders are examined.
Canada is organizing a meeting in London tomorrow with representatives from several countries that lost citizens in the crash, to co-ordinate dealings with Iran.
Meanwhile, universities across Canada held a moment of silence today to honour the victims.
Students, faculty and researchers from more than a dozen Canadian universities were among those who died when the Ukraine International Airlines flight was shot down.
The Canadian Press has independently confirmed at least 89 victims with ties to Canada, many of them students and professors returning after spending the December break visiting relatives in Iran.
