While Iran continues to deny evidence cited by Canada and the U.S. that a surface-to-air missile downed Flight PS752, the Ukrainian aircraft’s black boxes could still provide some crucial clues around the cause of the crash.
An aircraft’s black boxes includes two components: the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
Iranian state television showed footage on Friday purportedly of the two black boxes recovered from the crashed Ukrainian airliner, Reuters reported.
The footage, posted online by state TV, showed two devices inside a wooden crate which commentary said were the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.
Both black boxes are damaged but their memory can be downloaded and examined, the commentary said.
The wooden crate was opened at the Iran Civil Aviation Organization, the commentary said.
WATCH: Iran TV purportedly shows Ukraine airliner’s black boxes
Iranian state television showed footage on Friday purportedly of the two black boxes recovered from the crashed Ukrainian airliner. 0:29
The flight data recorder tracks measurements like air speed, altitude, heading (bearing) and engine thrust, while the cockpit voice recorder records all the communication between crew members, as well as between the crew and air traffic control, and the ambient sound in the cockpit.
“If it’s an operational-type accident — operational meaning pilot issues and so on, nothing wrong with the aircraft — then the flight recorders are very, very good at telling you exactly what happened,” said Mike Poole, a former investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and an expert on flight recorders.
“If it’s a technical problem with the aircraft, then the flight recorder is [also] very good at telling you there’s a technical problem,” he said. “But pinpointing it usually requires the physical wreckage.”
And when it comes to figuring out whether a plane was downed by an outside force, such as a projectile, the recorders can further offer some indirect evidence.
Signature of a perfectly functioning airplane
“If you’re shot down, the signature is typically a perfectly functioning airplane and perfectly normal operations that all of a sudden stops,” Poole said. “That doesn’t necessarily [mean] it was shot down, but it says whatever happened was instantaneous.”
Of the 176 victims killed on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight after it crashed Wednesday shortly after takeoff from Tehran, 63 were Canadian citizens and a total of 138 were ultimately bound for Canada.
Members of Montreal’s Iranian community attend a vigil in downtown Montreal to mourn victims of Flight PS752. (Andrej Ivanov/Canadian Press)
On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that intelligence from multiple sources, including Canada, has indicated Flight PS752 was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air-missile, perhaps unintentionally.
Iran has denied the allegations.
If true, it would mean the plane met the same fate as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was shot down over territory held by pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing 296 people, including one Canadian.
In its report into that crash, the Dutch Safety Board concluded the plane was downed by the detonation of a warhead launched by a surface-to-air missile system. While forensic chemical analysis on the wreckage helped make that determination, investigators also used some of the evidence gathered from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.
One piece of evidence that came from the cockpit voice recorder was a 2.3 millisecond sound peak — a noise, it was concluded, that originated from outside the airplane.
“Normally when an aircraft is hit by a projectile like that … it can even be heard, because there’s a sudden decompression, and most of that is captured in the cockpit voice recorder,” said Daniel Adjekum, an assistant professor of aviation at the University of North Dakota.
No alerts or warnings
Investigators also found the MH17 data recorders had stopped abruptly — and they confirmed the normal functioning of the airplane’s engines and systems before the crash; no warning failures or discrepancies were recorded.
Nor were there any alerts or warnings of system malfunction heard in MH17’s cockpit voice recorders; communication between flight crew members gave no indication of any malfunction or emergency prior to the crash.
“This will be clues to the investigators that whatever happened was sudden — it was instantaneous in a way that their recordings were abruptly stopped,” Adjekum said. “Those are clues that, most likely, it was hit by a projectile.”
Questions have already been raised over potential access to the black boxes of Flight PS752.
Based on international aviation regulations, Iran has authority over the crash probe since it occurred in their territory.
While representatives of the plane’s manufacturer are often involved in the investigation of the crash and analysis of the flight recorders, in this case, the plane was manufactured by U.S.-based Boeing. But with the ongoing standoff between the U.S. and Iran, the country’s aviation authority has said it would not send the black boxes to the American company.
(Iran has said that Ukranian officials can be present, however, as well as Canadians, albeit in a limited capacity.)
It is unlikely that Iran has the technology needed to access the information from the black boxes, with officials already saying they may need to outsource the recorders to outside experts.
Adjekum believes the best way forward is to get a third-party country involved — one that has relations with Iran and the U.S., as well as the technical capability to retrieve the data.
“France might be my best bet,” he said. “Send it out to France. [American] NTSB investigators can also travel to France, a third-party country, and they can all be there when the data … is read out.
“And it will satisfy everybody in terms of transparency and openness.”
WATCH: Ukraine mourns, sends investigators to Iran
A day of mourning was declared in Ukraine as the country sends crash investigators to Iran to determine the cause of the crash. 1:56
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
