Iran is refusing to give to Boeing the black box from the doomed airliner that crashed shortly after takeoff Wednesday morning, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board.
"We will not give the black box to the manufacturer [Boeing] or America," the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Authority, Ali Abedzadeh, said.
Iranian officials quickly blamed technical failures for the Ukrainian International Airlines crash, and the Ukrainian embassy in Tehran initially echoed this stance, but later retracted its statement.
Meanwhile, aviation experts are voicing their opinion that the air disaster was likely a "shootdown event" and should be treated as such "until there is clear evidence to the contrary." Aviation organization OPS Group cites "obvious projectile holes in the fuselage and a wing section," pointing to three pictures from the crash scene:
Chilling footage of the disaster shows the jetliner on fire as it descends before crashing to the ground in a giant explosion:
The crash killed 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians, 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, and three British nationals.
