Iran will send black boxes of downed plane to Ukraine

Iran is sending the black boxes of the Ukrainian passenger plane that its military accidentally shot down this month - back to Ukraine.

According to Tasnim news agency, Iranian authorities are also prepared for experts from France, Canada and the U.S to examine the data from the boxes.

All 176 people aboard the Ukrainian International Airlines flight died when the plane was shot down on January 8 - shortly after take-off from Tehran, en route to Kiev.

Director in charge of accident investigations at Iran's Civil Aviation Organization told Tasnim that the flight data recorder would be sent to France if experts could not read it in Kiev.

57 of those who died were Canadian, and prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has been pressing for a full investigation into the plane downing, said Friday that Iran should send the black boxes to France for analysis - as it is one of the few countries with the ability to read the flight and cockpit data recorders from the jet, which he told a news conference, were badly damaged.

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Iran has faced a deepening crisis abroad and at home over the plane disaster, with authorities taking several days to announce that its military had accidentally shot the plane down.

The downing occurred as Iran was on high alert for possible retaliatory action following its strikes on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops.

Those strikes were in revenge for the U.S. killing of top military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone attack in Baghdad on January 3.