Confirmation of the death of the Iranian President and Foreign Minister after the wreckage of their helicopter was found

  • 2024-05-20
Confirmation of the death of the Iranian President and Foreign Minister after the wreckage of their helicopter was found
Confirmation of the death of the Iranian President and Foreign Minister after the wreckage of their helicopter was found

Welat TV - Erbil

Iranian authorities and official media announced the death of Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and a number of those accompanying them, in their helicopter crash, about 15 hours after it crashed.

A state of conflict prevailed over information about the incident after it was announced that a helicopter carrying Ibrahim Raisi, on Sunday, was forced to make an emergency landing in East Azerbaijan Province, northwest of Iran, due to bad weather conditions and heavy fog.

The Iranian President was returning from a visit to the city of Tabriz, the centre of East Azerbaijan Province, where he opened the joint "Qiz Qal’a Si" dam on the Aras border river between Iran and Azerbaijan in the presence of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.

Search and rescue operations took place immediately after the accident and continued until Monday morning, due to the bad weather conditions and the rugged mountainous area, until the wreckage of the helicopter was finally found.

The Iranian News Agency "IRNA" published the moment the wreckage of the helicopter was found by the volunteer drone team of the Red Crescent Rescue Organization.

According to Iranian media, along with the Iranian President and Foreign Minister, the Friday Imam of Tabriz, Ayatollah al Hashem, the Governor of East Azerbaijan, Malik Rahmati, Brigadier General Sayed Mehdi Mousavi, head of the Iranian President’s Protection Unit, a member of the Revolutionary Guard, the pilot, the co-pilot, and a technical official, were on board the helicopter.

For its part, the Iranian government issued a statement following an emergency meeting held on Monday morning, in which it mourned the Iranian president and said: “There will be no disruption in the management of the country’s affairs.”

Mahr News Agency confirmed that all passengers of the helicopter that was carrying the president were killed.