KYIV — A leaked audio recording of a conversation between an Iranian air traffic controller and an Iranian pilot suggests authorities in Tehran knew immediately that a Ukrainian passenger jet had been shot down, killing all 176 people on board.



The recording, broadcast by a Ukrainian TV channel Sunday night, has been acknowledged as genuine by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of the Iranian investigation team.

On the recording, the pilot of an inbound passenger plane heading for Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport on the morning of Jan. 8 describes witnessing something resembling a missile being fired, followed by a midair explosion. The pilot says that he can see a burning object flying through the air. The baffled air traffic controller responds by saying nothing like that should be happening and asks if it’s flying toward Tehran, to which the pilot says that it’s flying from the Iranian capital.

The exchange provides another piece of the still-murky puzzle about the tragic downing of the Kyiv-bound Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. It also adds evidence to the argument of Ukrainian and Western officials that Iranian authorities likely knew immediately that two missiles were fired toward the Boeing 737 — if air traffic control was aware of something as hazardous as a missile being fired, it’s likely to have notified government officials straightaway.

The recording was obtained and first aired by the Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel’s TSN news program, which shared the unedited five-minute clip exclusively with BuzzFeed News. TSN journalist Andriy Tsaplienko said the audio recording was passed to him from an intelligence source who wished to remain anonymous because of restrictions on contacts with media during the investigation into the incident.

Zelensky confirmed the recording’s authenticity during the TSN program. On Monday, Hassan Rezaeifar, head of the Iranian investigation team, confirmed it too and suggested Iran would cut cooperation with Ukraine due to the conversation being published, Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported.

“This file was among the materials provided to a group of experts who are investigating the disaster. [It’s publication] by the Ukrainian side suggests that we will not transfer any materials to them anymore,” Rezaeifar was quoted as saying.