What to know about helicopter crash that killed Iran’s President Raisi

BEIRUT (AP) — The helicopter crash that killed Iranian president and the Minister of Foreign Affairs sent shock waves through the region.

Iranian state media said on Monday that President Ebrahim Raïssithe country’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, and others were found dead at the site after hours of searching in a mountainous and foggy region in the country’s northwest.

Here’s what we know so far.

WHO WAS ON BOARD THE HELICOPTER AND WHERE WERE THEY GOING?

The helicopter was carrying Raisi, Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Raisi was returning on Sunday after traveling to Iran’s border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev when the accident occurred in the Dizmar forest in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.

IRNA said the crash killed eight people in total, including three crew members aboard the Bell helicopter, purchased by Iran in the early 2000s. In Iran, the planes face a shortage of spare parts and often fly without safety checks due to Western sanctions. It is for this reason that former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to blame the United States for the accident.

The United States has not yet publicly commented on Raisi’s death.

HOW DID THE SEARCH OPERATION GO?

Iranian officials said the mountainous, forested terrain and thick fog were hampering search and rescue operations, which began on Sunday.

The president of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir-Hossein Koulivand, said 40 search teams were on the ground despite “difficult weather conditions.” Due to bad weather, it was “impossible to conduct aerial searches” via drones, Koulivand said, according to IRNA.

HOW WAS THE CRASH SITE FOUND?

On Monday morning, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a wildfire that they “suspected was helicopter wreckage.” Coordinates shown in the images located the fire about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijani-Iranian border, on the side of a steep mountain.

Images released by IRNA show what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a lush green mountain range. The soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There we are, we found him. Shortly after, state television said in scrolling text on the screen: “There are no signs of life from those on board.” »

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF RAISI’S DEATH ON IRAN?

Raïssi was considered a protégé of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a potential successor to his post within the country’s Shiite theocracy.

According to the Iranian constitution, if a president dies, the country’s first vice president – ​​in this case Mohammad Mokhber – becomes president. Khamenei publicly assured Iranians that there would be “no disruption to the country’s operations” following the accident.

WHAT WAS THE INTERNATIONAL REACTION?

After the search operation was announced, countries including Russia, Iraq and Qatar made formal statements of concern over Raisi’s fate and offered to help with the search.

Azerbaijani President Aliyev offered all the necessary support. Relations between the two countries have remained cold due to Azerbaijan’s diplomatic ties with Israel, Iran’s archenemy in the region.

Saudi Arabia, traditionally a rival of Iran although the two countries have recently made a connectionsaid he stood with “Iran in these difficult circumstances.”

There was no immediate official reaction from Israel. Last month, following an Israeli strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus that killed two Iranian generals, Tehran launched hundreds of missiles and drones in Israel. They were mostly shot dead and tensions have apparently since eased.