Video appears to show (allegedly) a Ukrainian plane being hit by an Iranian missile. The New York Times says it is authentic

A video has appeared online showing an unidentified object hitting an airplane in flight. Iranian user Nariman Gharib posted a video of a missile strike on the plane, saying that sources had sent it to him. The user asked for the authenticity of the video to be verified and said he is trying to obtain the original version of the footage, containing metadata. Based on Nariman Gharib's social media profile, it can be concluded that he is a journalist.

The American newspaper The New York Times says it verified the video and that it was indeed filmed near the site of the plane crash.

The video shows a missile hitting the plane, but the aircraft does not explode immediately and continues to fly.

The research center Bellingcat also confirmed the authenticity of the footage.

Earlier, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a press conference about the crash of the Ukrainian plane in Tehran, which had 68 Canadian citizens on board. Trudeau said that Canadian intelligence data indicate that the Ukrainian plane was shot down by a missile fired from Iran.

A few hours earlier, US President Donald Trump, speaking to journalists, admitted that the Ukrainian plane could have been shot down "by mistake by the other side." Trump said he does not believe the technical malfunction version and called for waiting for the results of the official investigation and the analysis of the recovered black boxes.

Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran's Civil Aviation Authority, in turn, denied the information that the Ukrainian Boeing could have been shot down by a missile. He claims that after takeoff the plane continued flying for another five minutes, and that the "pilot tried to return to the airport but failed." Abedzadeh said he does not understand "how an airplane can be shot down by a missile or a projectile" and then the pilot "tried to return to the airport."

As a reminder, on the morning of January 8, at about 06:10 local time, a Ukrainian plane of the MAU airline crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran airport (Iran). There were 176 people on board, including passengers and crew. Among them were 11 Ukrainians: 2 passengers and 9 crew members. The other passengers were citizens of Iran (82), Canada (63), Sweden (10), Afghanistan (4), Germany (3) and the United Kingdom (3). No one survived.

The Ukrainian embassy in Iran initially said that an engine had caught fire, adding that it ruled out a missile or terrorist attack, but soon deleted the statement. Later, the embassy said that a special commission would determine the causes of the crash and that until its decision any statements about the causes were not official.