KIEV/DUBAI — A leaked audio recording of an Iranian pilot talking to the control tower in Tehran shows that Iran knew immediately it had shot down a Ukrainian airliner last month, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. All 176 people aboard the flight were killed when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff en route from Tehran to Kiev on Jan. 8. The Iranian official in charge of accident investigations at Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization criticized Ukraine for releasing the recording. The pilot says: “It’s the light of a missile.”The control tower can be heard trying and failing to raise the Ukrainian airliner on the radio. The pilot of the Iranian plane then says he has seen “an explosion.

Source: National Post February 03, 2020 12:00 UTC