Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) officials in Paris on Monday confirmed the presence of flight recorders from the Ukrainian jet shot down by Iran in January.
All 176 passengers aboard Flight PS752 were killed, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
Officials from Canada, as well as Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom, are in Paris investigating the black box from the flight, which was transported from Iran last week.
“We are pleased to finally move forward with this next step, an important milestone in what must be a thorough and transparent safety investigation,” TSB chair Kathy Fox said in a statement. “It is our hope that data from these recorders can provide additional valuable information to inform the investigation, which in the end will help bring answers and closure to the families.”
Iranian forces say they downed the Ukraine International Airlines jet, a Boeing 737, on Jan. 8 after mistaking it for a missile at a time of high tensions with the United States.
Lab work to extract data from the black boxes got underway after a preliminary meeting with Iranian and other officials present at BEA headquarters outside Paris, a spokesperson said.
The cockpit voice recorder will be accessed first, with the flight data recorder to follow, he said, adding that the work was likely to take at least until Thursday.
Iran agreed in June to send the black boxes to the BEA for analysis, ending a long standoff with Canada, Ukraine and France over access to the data.
Within months, China blocked Canadian canola seed imports, stating some shipments were contaminated with pests.
“While we welcome the delivery of Flight PS752’s recorders to France’s Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Bureau, this is long overdue, and is only a step towards completing the safety investigation,” a spokesperson from Global Affairs Canada said in a statement.
“We reiterate our demand for Iran to conduct a full, transparent, and independent flight safety investigation in accordance with international standards.
— With files from Reuters