Latest on the Deadly Iran Plane Crash

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you`re absolutely right, Christiane. We managed to reach the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Authority and we put this information to him that U.S. intel services have been putting out there saying that they now increasingly believe that the plane may have been shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. Now, he did not flat-out deny that that may have been the case. However, he did say that he does have his doubts. He said the reason for that is that the plane took off, it flew for several minutes, I think they said in the end it flew for about five minutes. At some point, there seemed to be a problem and the plane tried to make its way back to the Imam Khomeini Airport. He says that if the plane would have — or in his estimation, if the plane would have been hit by a missile, struck by a missile, it would have stopped its forward progress immediately and plunged to the ground. He basically said, how can a plane try to make a move and go back to the airport if it was hit by a missile? So, that`s the head of the Aviation Authority. We also asked him, what about the black boxes? Because the Iranians have obviously said they`re not going to send these black boxes back to Boeing. He says that the Iranians generally have the capability to read these black boxes. However, he also says that the black boxes have been damaged. There`s a team of Ukrainian inspectors here. And he says, tomorrow the Iranian and Ukrainian inspectors are going to try and get read outs from the black boxes. However, if that turns out to be a problem, because one of the black boxes is damaged, then they might ask the French and Canadians for help and even send in those black boxes over there. So, right now, the Iranians are aware of this information that U.S. Intelligence Services have been putting out there, that they are — or the head of the Civil Aviation Authority is saying he has doubts about whether or not the plane was indeed struck by a missile. However, he does not seem to be ruling it out. Meanwhile, on the ground, crews there are obviously working to sift through the debris, to do their work there. There was apparently one inspector on the ground who said no missile debris has been found so far. But, of course, we know from the Ukrainian, from the National Security Advisor of the Ukrainians that one of the theories that they`re working with is that the plane may have been struck by a missile. They`re talking about a Tor surface-to-air missile system, which the U.S. qualifies as the SA-15, which is a low altitude, short range surface-to-air missile system used to hit slow flying planes. It is manufactured by Russia. But apparently, is also generally in use by the Iranian aerospace and air defense forces. Of course, unclear to us whether or not a system like that may have been positioned at the Imam Khomeini Airport or at around the Imam Khomeini Airport. So, still, obviously, a lot of questions out there. Ukrainian experts on the ground here and the Iranians are saying that whatever comes of the information on those black boxes, this is again from the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, whatever information comes out of that will be made public to the world, as he put it straight to us, Christiane.