Accidents
U.S. Officials Say Ukrainian 737 Shot Down by Iran
Iranians continue to suggest a technical failure caused the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing to crash.

Iranian forces shot down the Ukrainian airliner that crashed outside Tehran on Wednesday, according to U.S. government sources who contradicted original reports by Iranian officials of a suspected engine explosion. The U.S. assessment, first reported Thursday by Newsweek, comes amid a political firestorm sparked by the killing of Iran’s top general by a U.S. drone strike and a subsequent missile attack by Iran on two airbases in Iraq occupied by U.S. military personnel. The tensions ostensibly prompted Iran to say it would not turn over the airplane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders to U.S. investigators, leading to suspicions in the West that the Iranian regime’s decision had more to do with a desire to potentially maintain plausible deniability. In fact, the Iranians have denied the most recent claims by U.S. officials.