Page 39 - IRANRptMay20

up COVID-19 losses of IRR30 trillion
Ukraine prosecutor general’s office to intensify investigation into Iran’s shooting down of UIA flight PS752
up to April 3 due to shutdowns caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,​Fars News Agency has reported the Iranian Association of Airlines as estimating.
The carriers were already haemorrhaging losses due to ongoing heavy US sanctions throttling operations.
Secretary of the Iranian Association of Airlines Masoud Asadi-Samani was cited as saying that there were presently three airlines in Iran with entirely grounded fleets due to the scrapping of domestic and international flights made necessary by efforts introduced by Iran and other countries in the battle against the pandemic.
“The number of air passengers reduced by 76% and flights by 90% during Nowruz [the Persian New Year] holidays [which ran from March 19-April 3], according to latest data released by Iran Airports Company,” he said. Revenues of Iranian airlines have dropped by a staggering 80% in recent weeks, with only a few flights going to international destinations including the UK, Turkey and Qatar.
According to Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKIA), on April 5, only two flights were recorded on its rota, including a return service from London with IranAir.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General's Office has been appointed to conduct a comprehensive forensic analysis of the shooting down of the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) PS752 just outside Tehran in early January, RIA Novosti has reported.
Ukrainian authorities have become increasingly frustrated with Iran’s dragging of its feet in its own investigation of the tragedy. They said in February that they would not let the coronavirus (COVID-19) health and economic emergency in Iran hamper​ ​investigations​ ​into what happened exactly.
“The Prosecutor General's Office intensifies the pre-trial investigation within the criminal proceedings over the downing of UIA’s Tehran-Kyiv PS752 flight in Iran on January 8, 2020, and insists on the creation of the international investigative team that would significantly speed up and increase the efficiency of the investigation,” the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office said. Prosecutors of the department are specifically investigating the use of two TOR-M1 missiles which were apparently used to take down the plane, and Iran’s explanations therein.
Also, details about flights that departed prior to PS752 from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport will be analysed and a number of investigative and other procedural actions are planned in relation to operations of the airport.
Ukraine has said that the issue of the aircraft’s blackbox flight recorders, which remain in Iran, remains unresolved despite assurances on several occasions from Tehran that they would be handed over to Kyiv as part of an investigation. Last month, an Iranian official at the International Civil Aviation Organization agreed to hand over the flight recorders to France or Ukraine for analysis, but they are yet to be surrendered.
There were 176 people aboard the flight—nine crew members (all Ukrainians) and 167 passengers (citizens of Ukraine, Iran, Canada, Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany, and the UK). They all perished.
9.1.4 ​Aerospace sector news
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on April 22 that it has​​put its first military satellite into orbit,​I​RNA reported on April 22. Named “Noor 1”, or “Light 1”, it was launched on a two-stage rocket that took
39​ IRAN Country Report May 2020 www.intellinews.com