May 20, 2024 -Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian have been killed in a helicopter crash in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.
Preliminary investigations have attributed the Sunday May 19 crash to poor weather. Authorities said there were low-hanging clouds and cooler-than-average temperatures across the northwestern region of Iran at the time of the crash.
President Raisi and his team were flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter, according to the Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, and were returning from an event with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev when the crash happened.
Several senior Iranian officials died in the crash including East Azerbaijan Governor Malek Rahmati; representative of the Iranian supreme leader in East Azerbaijan Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem; and Presidential guard Mahdi Mousavi.
Also killed were the chopper’s pilot, co-pilot and crew and some of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition.
Immediately after the crash, the chief of staff of Iran’s army ordered all resources of the army and the elite Revolutionary Guards to be put to use in search and rescue operations.
After hours of search in the difficult weather, rescuers finally found the crash site. in the Dizmar forest, located between the cities of Varzaqan and Jolfa in East Azerbaijan Province.
Raisi, 63, and a former Chief Justice was elected president in 2021, and since taking office has ordered a tightening of morality laws, overseen a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.
He was the eighth Iranian president since the Islamic Revolution of 1979
The crash comes at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises.
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