Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752

I looked to see if there was already a thread about this, but I didn't see one.

Iran plane crash: Tehran won't give Boeing or US black boxes (BBC)

Quote:

Iran has said it will not hand over black box flight recorders recovered from a plane that crashed with 176 people on board to manufacturer Boeing or to the US. The Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 went down just minutes after taking off from Tehran's airport, leaving no survivors. . . . The crash came at a time of high tensions between Iran and the US and just hours after Iran carried out missile strikes on two air bases housing US forces in Iraq. There is no evidence the two events are linked. . . . In comments published by Iran's conservative Mehr news agency, the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation (CAO), Ali Abedzadeh, said: "We will not give the black box to the manufacturer and the Americans." "This accident will be investigated by Iran's aviation organisation but the Ukrainians can also be present," he added.

Sometimes there are clues in what is said and what is not said.

Quote:

What happened? The Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 to Kyiv had 176 people on board when it crashed in Iran on Wednesday. The majority of passengers were from Iran and Canada. Ukraine's Tehran embassy initially blamed engine failure but later removed the statement, saying any comment regarding the cause of the accident prior to a commission's inquiry was not official. There was good visibility when the plane went down near Iran's capital, according to the Flightradar24 aviation website. Officials from the airline said the crew were experienced. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned against "speculation or unchecked theories regarding the catastrophe" until official reports were ready. Iranian media blamed technical problems and quoted an aviation official who said no emergency had been declared. Mr Abedzadeh said "terrorism" had played no role in the crash, according to Mehr.

Don't such statements seem a bit premature? If you follow the BBC link and scroll down a bit, you will see a figure titled "Flight Profile of PS752" which shows that the plane was climbing before suddenly all contact was lost. Doesn't seem consistent with engine trouble.

This next article goes a bit further with speculation than the BBC was willing to, but it seems like a reasonable analysis to me:
It Sure Looks Like the Ukrainian Airliner May Have Been Accidentally Shot Down in Iran

Quote:

According to flight data recorded by Flightradar 24, the plane took off at 2:42 universal time, or 6.12 a.m. local time, a little more than three hours after Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases hosting U.S. troops. Three minutes later, it had reached an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet and was continuing to climb at a steady ground speed of 276 knots, or 318 mph. Then, abruptly, it dropped. A state-run Iranian media outlet released a video that appeared to show the aircraft descending in flames before impacting the ground. An Iranian official told the IRNA news agency that a fire had broken out in one of the engines, causing the pilot to lose control. Engine malfunctions can certainly cause planes to crash but generally not in the manner observed with Flight 752. The wing, not the engine, is what keeps a plane in the air, and even if a plane loses power in all its engines, it can still glide for a considerable distance under pilot control (see: the Miracle on the Hudson). Even if an engine catches fire, the flight crew generally has time to respond. Worth noting too is that Iran’s explanation came implausibly quickly, before officials had scarcely had a chance to pick through the still-smoldering debris. Tellingly, Ukrainian officials, who had endorsed the engine-failure explanation soon after the crash, soon backtracked, saying it was too early to ascribe a cause. Meanwhile, the sudden loss of flight data suggests a catastrophic event that instantly destroyed or disrupted the electronic equipment that transmits the data.