DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and others have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash Monday after an hourslong search through a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported. Raisi was 63.
The crash comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas war, during which Raisi under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month. Under Raisi, Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels, further escalating tensions with the West as Tehran also supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and armed militia groups across the region.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi dies in air crash — media
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and others have been found dead at the helicopter crash site, state media report.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian died in a helicopter crash, according to media reports.
“The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, had an accident while serving and performing his duty for the people of Iran and was martyred,” Iran’s Mehr news agency said.
The Reuters news agency cited an Iranian official as saying that both Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian died in the crash on Monday in the northwestern East Azerbaijan region.
The government is yet to issue an official confirmation of the death.
Iranian Prez feared dead as rescuers locate remains of crashed helicopter
A search-and-rescue team looking for the remains of a crashed helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi found the heavily damaged aircraft early Monday morning—but reported “no signs of life” were detected in the area and that “no survivors” had been found, according to state media.
No official death announcement has been made as of midnight Eastern Time, though one official told Reuters that Tehran was rapidly losing hope that Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and the seven other people on board were still alive—especially given the harsh terrain and freezing conditions in the northern mountains near the country’s border with Azerbaijan, where the helicopter went down.
“President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash … unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” the official said.
Drone footage published by the state-run FARS News Agency and viewed by CNN showed the burnt-out hull of the aircraft, of which little remained beyond its tail. The helicopter went down on a “steep, wooded hillside,” the network reported.
Rescuers were decidedly more optimistic just hours earlier, when emergency crews received a signal from one of the crew members aboard the vessel—leading Iranian Vice President for Executive Affairs, Mohsen Mansouri, to tell FARS that he believed the incident was “not severe,” according to CNN.
State-run news agency IRNA initially described the incident as a “hard landing.”
