TEHRAN, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The black box of a passenger plane which crashed over Tehran's airspace earlier this month will be sent to Ukraine for reading the data, an official in Iran's Aviation Organization said on Saturday.

"The black box cannot be read in Iran, and following the request of the Ukrainians, it will be sent to Ukraine," said Hassan Rezaeefar, the director of Incident Investigation of Iran's Aviation Organization, the Iranian Daneshjoo news agency reported.

If the black box cannot be read in Ukraine, it will be sent to France for the same purpose, Rezaeefar said.

On Jan. 8, a Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 passenger plane crashed near Tehran, and all of the 176 people on board were killed.