TEHRAN - Defense industry experts have been assigned to reassemble and analyze details of the black box flight recorder of the ill-fated Ukrainian passenger plane, Iranian Defense Minister Amir Hatami announced on Wednesday.

“The black box has been badly damaged. The defense industries have been asked to reassemble the black box and then analyze it,” Hatami said after a cabinet session. 

Experts are now trying to reassemble the black box, he added. 

The Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 went down just minutes after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini international airport on the morning of January 8. It was mistakenly downed by the Iranian military.

Under global aviation rules, Iran has the right to lead the investigation.

Plane manufacturers and experts say few countries are capable of analyzing black boxes.

After detailed investigations the Iranian military announced on January 11 that the plane had been mistaken for a cruise missile by the IRGC Aerospace units. The incident took place nearly four hours after Iran fired missiles at a major U.S. airbase in western Iraq in retaliation for the January 3 assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. The military had been put on high alert due to the situation.

The victims of the crash included 82 Iranians, 63 Iranian-Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, and three British nationals.
MJ/PA