Paris (dpa) - Experts at the French air accident investigation body, the BEA, on Monday successfully extracted data from the cockpit voice recorder of a Ukrainian airliner shot down by Iran on January 8.
All 176 people on board were killed when Iranian forces mistakenly shot down the plane shortly after it took off from Tehran en route to Kiev.
The data from the voice recorder included "the event itself" and has been handed over to Iranian authorities, who are in charge of the investigation, the BEA wrote on Twitter.
The cockpit voice recorder is one of the two so-called "black boxes" fitted to all airliners.
The other black box, the flight data recorder, was being examined by experts, the BEA said.
The French body last month confirmed that Iran had asked it for technical assistance to repair the boxes and download their data.
Investigators from Canada's Transportation Safety Board were in attendance at the BEA's Paris headquarters.
Almost half the passengers were residents of Canada.
Earlier this month, the Iranian aviation authority said that the downing of the flight was due to "human error" involving the misalignment of a military radar system.
The incident took place during heightened tensions with US forces in neighbouring Iraq.
Canada, Ukraine, Sweden, Afghanistan and Britain welcomed the handover of the black boxes to the BEA but said it was "long overdue."
"We reiterate our demand for Iran to conduct a full, transparent, and independent flight safety investigation in accordance with international standards," the countries said in a joint statement.
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