Although this left little room for doubt, the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) confirmed in a preliminary investigation report that the Ukrainian International Airlines Boeing 737 was shot down on January 8 by Iranian armed forces by two missiles.
"Investigators accessed information from headquarters and discovered that two M1-TOR missiles had been fired towards the aircraft from the north," said the report.
"The effect of the missile strikes on the accident and the analysis of this action are under investigation," added the document, confirming information from the New York Times which said it had authenticated a video showing that two missiles had been fired in the direction of the aircraft.
The Iranian general staff had recognized on January 11, three days after the tragedy, the responsibility of the armed forces in this air disaster having left 176 dead.
Endorsing "total responsibility" for the accident, Brigadier-General Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the aerospace branch of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of Iran, spoke on that day of only one "missile short range ”shot towards the aircraft.
