Iran has signaled that Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) would play a more active role than international rules require in the investigation of the Iranian military’s shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner last week, TSB head Kathy Fox said on Monday, reports Reuters.
A missile fired by Iran brought down the Ukrainian airline plane on January 8 killing all 176 aboard, including 57 Canadians.
“In this investigation – and I want to be clear about this – we do not yet fully know what the scope of our role will be,” Fox said in a news conference.
She added that “there have been early signs that Iran is allowing the TSB to play a more active role than normally permitted”, such as by inviting its investigators to participate in downloading and analyzing the data in the cockpit voice and flight data recorders “whenever and wherever that takes place”.
READ: Canadian PM Trudeau tells Iran crash vigil he will pursue justice
Canada has been invited to participate in the probe because a large number of its citizens were involved, but according to international rules, Iran leads the investigation.

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On Sunday, the TSB said it had obtained visas for two of its investigators to travel to Iran. The second team of investigators who specialize in aircraft recorder download and analysis will be deployed once TSB confirms where and when that activity would take place, the agency said