Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been confirmed dead after a helicopter carrying him and the country’s foreign minister crashed on Sunday evening.
The helicopter that was also carrying other top officials in the country apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran.
A massive night rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest was a little too late as Iranian Red Crescent and the Iranian state television reported there were no survivors from the helicopter crash.
The crash had initially been described as a “hard landing”, and happened amid bad weather on Sunday.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society announced early today that they had found the location of the wreckage of President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter after it was detected by a Turkish Akinci unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drone.
President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash.
President Raisi and the others on board remained missing more than 12 hours after the likely crash, with Turkish drone footage suggesting the helicopter went down in the mountains.
President Raisi had attended the inauguration ceremony for a dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border on Sunday by helicopter.
Iranian state television reported that the accident occurred when Raisi’s helicopter made a hard landing while returning from the region.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Malik Rahmeti, the governor of East Azerbaijan Province, and Imam Ayatollah Ali Hashim of Tabriz province were also on board the helicopter.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi was in Kenya in July 2023 when his counterpart William Ruto hosted him for a state visit.
Iran, which faces sanctions from most western countries, has begun renewing its diplomatic partnerships with the African continent.
President Raisi, 63, who was seen as a frontrunner to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s Supreme Leader.
