WASHINGTON: A video has surfaced in the US media which claims to have captured the moments when the Ukrainian airliner was allegedly hit by an Iranian missile above Parand near Tehran Airport.
The video was released by The New York Times and the newspaper has said that it has verified the purported video.
In a 19-second clip, a small explosion can be witnessed at a moment when the claimed missile hits the plane. The location of the missile striking the plane is said to be the place where the Ukrainian airliner stopped transmitting its signal before it crashed on Wednesday.
According to the NYT, the jet continued flying for several minutes after collision with the missile and turned back toward the airport. The Times stated that the plane flew toward the airport ablaze before it exploded and crashed quickly killing all 176 people on board.
The authenticity of the video remains unverified by any official agency.
The Boeing 737 jet with 176 people on board including 63 Canadians crashed minutes after taking off from Tehran on Wednesday morning. Eighty-two Iranians,
63 Canadians, and 11 Ukrainians died in the crash, which took place between the cities of Parand and Shahriar. There were also 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three British nationals among the victims.
Earlier in the day, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his country has intelligence from multiple sources that Ukrainian airliner was shot down by Iranian surface-to-air missile.
CNN reported that the United States believes that Iran mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian airliner. President Donald Trump has indicated the plane crash was not due to mechanical issues, adding that “somebody could have made a mistake on the other side.”
Meanwhile, European security officials said they believe that reports suggesting that the Ukrainian airliner was shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile in error are credible.
Ali Abedzadeh, the chief of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, wrote in a preliminary report on the crash that both of the plane’s black boxes have been damaged, with physical damage visible. (ANI)
