Video verified as authentic and obtained by The New York Times appeared to show the moment when an Iranian missile struck a jetliner near the airport in Tehran.
With intelligence officials studying the event and pointing to the likelihood the was brought down by something other than mechanical difficulties, the video was said to offer new clues about what happened. In all, 176 passengers and crew members were killed with the crash of the Ukrainian airliner, many from Canada.
According to the Times' interpretation of the video, a small explosion occurred when what appears to be a missile hit the plane above Parand, a city near the airport, but the plane did not explode. The video appeared to show the jet continued flying for several minutes and turned back toward the airport, the Times determined. The plane, which by then had stopped transmitting its signal, flew toward the airport ablaze before it exploded and crashed quickly.
In the video, some 10 seconds pass between the flash from what is believed to be a missile and the sound of the explosion reaching the camera. The sound delay indicates the plane was two miles from the camera at the time of impact, the Times reported. That distance is consistent with the path of the Ukraine International Airlines flight, based on data from a flight tracking company called FlightRadar24.
The Times also relied on other details in the video, such as buildings in the background, to verify authenticity.
A lingering question for investigators, among many, is whether any missile strike would have been intentinonal or not. The crash took place hours after Iran had fired missiles at Iraq bases that house U.S. troops, this in retaliation for an airstrike that killed the top Iranian general.
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