Ukraine: Recordings show Iran knew jetliner hit by a missile

KYIV, Ukraine — A leaked recording of an exchange between an Iranian air-traffic controller and an Iranian pilot purports to show that authorities immediately knew a missile had downed a Ukrainian jetliner after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard, despite days of denials by the Islamic Republic after the Jan. 8 disaster.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the recording’s authenticity in a report aired by a Ukrainian television channel on Sunday night.

In Tehran on Monday, the head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, acknowledged the recording was legitimate and said that it was handed over to Ukrainian officials.

A transcript of the recording, published by Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel, contains a conversation in Farsi between an air-traffic controller and a pilot reportedly flying for Iran’s Aseman Airlines from Iran’s southern city of Shiraz to Tehran.

“A series of lights like yes, it is a missile, is there something?” the pilot calls out to the controller.

“No, how many miles? Where?” the controller asks.

The pilot responds that he saw the light by the Payam airport, near where the Guard’s Tor M-1 antiaircraft missile was launched from. The controller says nothing has been reported to them, but the pilot remains insistent.

“Dear engineer, it was an explosion. We saw a very big light there, I don’t really know what it was,” the pilot responds.

The controller then tries to contact the Ukrainian jetliner, but unsuccessfully.