Rescuers recover bodies from Iran President Raisi’s helicopter crash site
Search and rescue teams have located the Iranian leader’s helicopter, which had crashed in a fog-shrouded mountain region in the west of the country.
Iranians are in mourning after President Ebrahim Raisi was confirmed dead on Monday when search and rescue teams found his crashed helicopter in a fog-shrouded western mountain region.
Iranian authorities first raised the alarm on Sunday afternoon when they lost contact with Raisi’s helicopter as it flew through the mountainous area of the Jolfa region in East Azerbaijan province.
Raisi had earlier met Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on the two countries' border to inaugurate a dam project.
On the return trip, only two of the three helicopters in his convoy landed in the city of Tabriz, setting off a massive search and rescue effort, with multiple foreign governments soon offering help.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi initially described the incident as a “hard landing” and urged citizens to disregard hostile foreign media channels, advising them to get their information “only from state television.”
The army, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the police joined the search as Red Crescent teams ascended a hill in the fog and rain, while rows of emergency services vehicles waited nearby.
Killed alongside Raisi were Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and seven others, including the pilot, bodyguards, and political and religious officials.
State television IRIB reported online that the helicopter had “hit a mountain and disintegrated” upon impact.
Iran’s Red Crescent chief, Pirhossein Koolivand, confirmed that their staff were “transferring the bodies of the martyrs to Tabriz” and that “the search operations have come to an end.”
Iranian authorities first raised the alarm on Sunday afternoon when they lost contact with Raisi's helicopter. [WANA via Reuters]
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