Ukraine has walked back its statement that ruled out a terror attack as a cause behind the crash of a Boeing 737 that killed all 176 people aboard shortly after takeoff in Tehran.
“Information on the causes of the plane crash is being clarified by the commission. Any statements regarding the causes of the accident prior to the decision of said commission are not official,” according to a new statement by Ukraine’s embassy in Iran, CNN reports.
Responding to a question about speculation that a rocket downed Flight PS752, Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said in Kiev: “Any versions before the official conclusion is just manipulation.”
Honcharuk added that Ukraine asked to join an Iranian-led probe into the crash of the Ukraine International Airlines jet.
Its flight and data recorders have been found, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB reported, citing the Tehran prosecutor.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Facebook post that the country has set up a commission to “work through all possible versions.”
The three-year-old Boeing 737-800 NG, which was bound for Kiev, was last seen on radar at 7,925 feet, according to FlightRadar 24, whose data suggest that the crash could have happened just two minutes after takeoff.
An earlier statement on the embassy’s website, which has since been deleted, ruled out a terror attack as a possible cause, adding that preliminary information suggested an engine malfunction.
The aircraft, registration UR-PSR, and “was built in 2016 and delivered directly to the airline from the manufacturer,” according to the airline, which has suspended all its flights to Tehran until further notice, CNN reported.
The crash occurred hours after an Iranian missile attack on US-led forces in Iraq.
Founded in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the privately held UIA operates out of Kiev’s Boryspil airport. Planes operated by the airline have suffered technical problems in flight over the years but have never crashed before, according to Reuters.
UIA officials told a news conference Wednesday that the plane involved in the fatal crash was one of the best they had and that its pilots were very experienced.
Airline officials said there was no indication that anything was wrong before the plane took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport and that it had last been routinely serviced on Monday.
The airline says on its website that it had been awarded the IOSA, the IATA Operational Safety Audit certificate, which means its operational and safety standards were in full compliance with international requirements.
UIA also has ordered three Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, which it has not yet taken delivery of because of safety concerns over the MAX project.
