Ukraine plane crash: Black box indicates pilots were alive before second missile

The Ukrainian passenger jet was mistakenly shot down by Iran in January. A black box of the plane has been recovered.

Data from the black box of Boeing 737 has been collected which indicated that the pilots and passengers were alive ahead of a second missile that hit 25 seconds later.

Capt Zanganeh, head of the Civil Aviation Organisation of Iran (CAOI), said “up to 19 seconds” of conversation between two pilots and a pilot instructor had been captured in the aircraft’s cabin after the first missile struck.

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It was “25 seconds later that the second missile hit the plane”, he said, adding: “They were piloting the plane until the last moment.”

He informed in a press conference that the information collected through the black boxes, which contains key data and communications from the cockpit, mentioned that the aircraft had been “in a normal flight corridor” before the first missile exploded, sending shrapnel into the aircraft.

Capt Zanganeh added: “At this moment, the plane has an electrical problem and the auxiliary power of the plane is turned on at the order of the pilot instructor. Both engines were on in the seconds after the explosion.

“No sound was heard from the passenger cabin at that moment… The recording stopped after 19 seconds.”

The Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight Boeing 737 crashed shortly after it took off from Tehran. All 176 people on board were killed.