Iran’s civil aviation boss Ali Abedzadeh said on Friday he was “certain” a Ukrainian airliner which crashed outside Tehran this week was not hit by a missile.

“One thing is for certain, this airplane was not hit by a missile,” Abedzadeh told reporters in Tehran after Britain and Canada both said intelligence sources suggested a catastrophic error by Iranian air defense batteries had downed the aircraft, AFP said.

France said on Friday it was ready to join the probe into the crash that killed all 176 people abroad. Ukraine said it could not rule out a missile strike but that had not been confirmed, Reuters reported.