It could take up to two months to extract data from the black boxes of the plane that crashed Wednesday, according to senior Iranian Civil Aviation Organization officials, who added that US officials must substantiate their claims alleging that the aircraft was hit by a missile.
“Twelve expert groups have been set up to investigate the crash and the information must be collected in order to come up with the final conclusion,” Ali Abedzadeh, the head of the Iran Civil Aviation Organization, said at a press conference in Tehran.
“So far what I can tell is the plane has not been hit by a missile, we have to look for the cause of the fire.”
Citing witnesses, Abedzadeh said the aircraft was on fire for more than 60 to 70 seconds. He also added that videos circulating that show an object hitting the aircraft cannot be confirmed scientifically.
If there had been an explosion in the air, the plane would have scattered across a much larger area, Abedzadeh said, referring to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that was downed in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
“The aircraft targeted in Ukraine, you can see the pieces were scattered in a larger area,” he said.
That plane, however, was flying at nearly 33,000 feet, whereas the Boeing 737-800 in Wednesday's incident climbed to only around 8,000 feet before plunging to the ground.
Abedzadeh said US officials must substantiate their claims with technical evidence that the aircraft was hit with a missile, and they legally have to present it to the International Civil Aviation Organization.