Iran sends black box of crashed Ukrainian plane to France for decoding

TEHRAN -- The black box of a passenger plane which crashed over Tehran's airspace in January was sent to France for reading the data, Iranian Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday.

The black box of the Ukrainian airplane was taken to Paris on Friday by the officials from Iran Civil Aviation and an Iranian judge, Iranian Labor News Agency quoted Mohsen Baharvand, deputy foreign minister for international and legal affairs, as saying.

The process of analyzing its data will begin on next Monday, said Baharvand.

On Jan 8, the Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Tehran to Kiev crashed near Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board.

Later, Iran's armed forces confirmed that an "unintentional" launch of a military missile shot down the Ukrainian airliner.