Iran’s Civil Aviation says black box of Ukrainian Boeing 737 is damaged

Iran may need outside help to decode the black box on the Ukrainian airliner because it is damaged, Ali Abedzadeh, Iran’s Civil Aviation Authority head, told CNN.

"Generally speaking, Iran has the potential and know-how to decode the black box. Everybody knows that," he said.

However, Abedzadeh said, “the black box of this very Ukrainian Boeing 737 is damaged. Ukrainian Aviation experts arrived here in Tehran today. We had a session with them. From tomorrow they will start decoding the data.”

“If the available equipment is not enough to get the content,” Iran will outsource the boxes to “the experts from France or Canada.” “Then whatever is the result will be published and publicized to the world," Abedzadeh said.

The Ukraine International Airlines flight to Kiev from Tehran crashed on Wednesday hours after Iran fired ballistic missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq. All 176 people on board were killed.