After maintaining for days that there was no evidence to show one of its missiles had struck the plane, the Iranian military said it was an accident caused by human error.
Iran announced early Saturday that it had accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, blaming it on human error because of what it called the plane’s sharp, unexpected turn toward a sensitive military base, according to a statement issued by the country’s military.
The announcement reversed Iran’s claims that mechanical issues caused the crash of the aircraft, which killed all 176 people aboard. It had persistently denied that Iranian military defenses had downed the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800.
International pressure had been building on Iran to take responsibility. American and allied intelligence assessments have said that Iranian missiles brought down the plane, most likely by accident, amid the heightened tensions between the United States and Iran.
Suspicions that an Iranian missile had brought down the plane began immediately after Wednesday morning’s crash — just hours after Iran fired missiles at two bases in Iraq housing American forces.
Official Iranian news media had cited technical problems as the cause in the hours after the crash. Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization chief, Ali Abedzadeh, doubled down on that assessment on Friday, saying nothing could be determined until the data from the black boxes was analyzed, and he characterized statements made by other nations as politically motivated.
But by late Friday, officials were considering acknowledging that Iranian missiles brought down the jet, according to four Iranians familiar with the deliberations. The government was also weighing whether to blame faulty jet equipment.
An Iranian report released on Thursday said that the plane, bound for the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was in flames before it hit the ground but sent no distress signal.
Video verified by The New York Times and published on Thursday appeared to show a missile fired from Iranian territory hitting the plane, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. The video showed a small explosion as the plane flew above Parand, a city near the airport — where it stopped transmitting its signal before it crashed. The plane turned back toward the airport before it exploded and crashed, other videos verified by The Times showed.
