TEHRAN, Iran — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday said evidence indicated that the Ukrainian plane that crashed near Iran’s capital of Tehran “was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”
“We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence,” Trudeau said at a news conference in Ottawa, Ontario, without providing further details. “The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”
He added that the strike “may well have been unintentional” and called for a “complete and credible investigation” into the cause of Wednesday’s crash, which killed 63 Canadians.
The crash came hours after Iranian missiles struck bases hosting U.S. forces in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of a senior Iranian general.
“The news will undoubtedly come as a further shock to the families who are already grieving in the face of this unspeakable tragedy,” the Canadian premier added.
All 176 people on board the Ukrainian International Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet died when it crashed in a field shortly after takeoff.
Iran says the plane went down due to a technical problem but authorities in Ukraine investigating the crash said in a Facebook post that they were not ruling out the possibility the plane was hit by a missile.
Ukrainian investigators are considering four possible scenarios, Alexey Danilov of the Ukrainian Security Council wrote on Facebook.
These include the possibility that the plane was hit by a Russian-made Tor missile, Danilov said.
The investigators include experts who helped determine that an anti-aircraft missile shot down Malaysian flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, he added.
The other scenarios are a collision with a flying object such as a drone, engine damage and a terrorist attack.
U.S. President Donald Trump added to the speculation on Thursday.
“I have my suspicions,” he said when asked about the crash at a White House event. “I don’t want to say that because other people have their suspicions also.
“It’s a tragic thing, but somebody could have made a mistake on the other side,” he said. “Some people say it was mechanical; I personally don’t think that’s even a question.”
Amid the speculation, a Lufthansa flight bound for Iran turned around after the German carrier changed its security assessment around Tehran airport, a spokesperson said, adding that the return to Frankfurt was purely precautionary.
The head of the Iranian aviation authority, Ali Abedsadeh, said it was “scientifically impossible” that the Ukrainian jet was shot down by a missile, calling the rumors “illogical.”
Several other planes were in Iranian airspace at the time of the crash, according to Abedsadeh. There is perfect coordination between the Iranian military and civil aviation authorities, otherwise planes would not dare to fly in its airspace, he said.
A thorough investigation into the cause of the crash is under way in cooperation with the Ukrainian airline and the manufacturers of the aircraft, he added.
According to International Civil Aviation Organization regulations, initial investigations into the crash will be conducted by Iran. However, if the necessary hardware and software for an investigation are not available in Iran, it will be conducted in another country, Abedsadeh said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy had a telephone conversation about the crash on Thursday, according to a statement on Iran’s presidential office website.
The presidents have agreed to close cooperation between their foreign ministries to clarify all aspects of the disaster, the statement said.
Iranian Transport Minister Mohammed Eslami rejected speculation about a “suspicious” crash, the Iranian news agency ISNA reported.
“The plane caught fire due to a technical defect, and this resulted in a crash,” Eslami said.
Both black boxes have been found and are being examined by Iranian aviation experts.
The public prosecutor’s office in Tehran confirmed that the remains of all passengers have been brought to forensics experts.
Both the black boxes — which record key flight data — and passengers’ remains are to be handed over to Ukrainian authorities, the minister said.
Ukraine’s Zelenskiy declared Thursday a national day of mourning, his office said in a statement.
The day of the crash “has become a black page in the history of Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said in an address to the nation, expressing condolences to the victims’ relatives.
All nine crew members aboard the flight were Ukrainian citizens, the president’s office said.
Most of the victims were Iranian and Canadian citizens.
The airline expressed its “deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the air crash,” according to a statement posted on its website.
The airline attested to the experience of the pilots, saying that crew “error probability is minimal. We do not even consider such a chance.”
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