Contact with the president’s helicopter was lost around 13:30 local time on Sunday, somewhere over the fog-covered mountains of north-west Iran. Hours of searching followed, and by Monday morning the news was confirmed. President Ebrahim Raisi, 63, was dead, along with seven others.
A dam ceremony, then Tabriz
Raisi had flown to East Azerbaijan province that morning to open the Qiz Qalasi and Khoda Afarin dams on the Aras river, a hydroelectric project built jointly with neighbouring Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, joined him and said he bid a “friendly farewell” before the helicopter left for Tabriz, about 130km to the south. A visit to the Tabriz oil refinery was next on the schedule.
Three helicopters made up the convoy. The one carrying Raisi came down about 58km south of the dam and 2km south-west of the village of Uzi, in remote mountain country. When communication dropped, the other two helicopters searched for 15 to 20 minutes and were then forced into emergency landings, an official told state TV. Tasnim reported that both reached their destination safely.
A night of searching
State TV did not report a “hard landing” until after 16:00. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the aircraft was “forced to make a hard landing due to bad weather conditions and fog in the area,” and that fog, snow, rain and rough terrain were slowing the rescue teams. Vice President Mohsen Mansouri said two people on board, a crew member and one other, had made contact several times. In his words, that “indicates that the severity of the incident was not very high.”
It did not hold up. Around 05:00 on Monday, rescuers spotted the wreckage from about 2km away and needed roughly an hour to reach it, Red Crescent head Pirhossein Kolivand said. At an altitude of around 2,200m they found “no signs of life.” More than 70 rescue teams with search dogs and drones had been sent, the Red Crescent said. The Guardian described the charred wreckage as being found after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.
Who died
Revolutionary Guard commander Major General Hossein Salami named those on board. Besides Raisi: Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian; East Azerbaijan governor Malek Rahmati; Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, Tabriz’s Friday prayer leader and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in the province; Brig-Gen Mohammad Mehdi Mousavi, head of the president’s security team; pilots Col Mohsen Daryanush and Col Seyyed Taher Mostafavi; and technician Maj Behrouz Qadimi.
Crisis management chief Mohammad Nami said all the bodies could be identified without DNA tests. He added that Al-e Hashem lived for an hour after the crash and spoke with the head of the president’s office before he died.
Iranian authorities have given no cause. State media identified the aircraft as a Bell 212, a model developed by a US company for the Canadian military in the 1960s. Iran owns a number of helicopters, but sanctions make parts hard to obtain, and most of its military air fleet predates the 1979 revolution. Former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told state TV the US was indirectly to blame because years of sanctions kept Iran from buying new aircraft.
Succession
Khamenei declared five days of public mourning. “With deep sorrow and regret, I have received the bitter news of the martyrdom of the people’s president,” he said. First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber became acting president under Article 131 of the constitution, which calls for an election within 50 days. Deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani was named acting foreign minister and can hold the job for up to three months.
Raisi was a hardliner who formerly led the judiciary and was seen as a protege of Khamenei, 85. He won the 2021 election on the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. The US had sanctioned him partly over the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Qatar sent well-wishes, and the EU offered emergency satellite mapping to help the search.
Sources
- Iran helicopter crash: What we know about how Ebrahim Raisi died
- Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi dies in helicopter crash
- Ebrahim Raisi
