Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian have been killed in a helicopter crash in the country's East Azerbaijan province, according to state media.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian have been killed in a helicopter crash in the country's East Azerbaijan province.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian have been killed in a helicopter crash in the country's East Azerbaijan province, according to state media.
The crash occurred on Sunday evening in challenging weather conditions, with rescue teams battling blizzards and difficult terrain to reach the wreckage. The helicopter was carrying a total of nine passengers, including the president, foreign minister, and other officials. No survivors have been reported.
The incident has been described as an accident by Iranian state television, with an investigation into the cause of the crash underway. Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian were key figures in Iran's government, with Raisi serving as president since 2021 and Amir-Abdollahian as foreign minister since 2021.
The incident comes as Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented retaliatory drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was travelling in the East Azerbaijan province when his helicopter suffered a "hard landing". The incident occurred near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, according to state TV.
Earlier on Sunday, President Raisi had visited Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam with President Ilham Aliyev, in a rare sign of cooperation between the two nations. The dam is the third to be built on the Aras River by Iran and Azerbaijan, despite chilly relations between the two countries. State TV footage showed President Raisi and other officials in the helicopter before the incident.
Watch the video here:
The helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his companions has been identified as a Bell 212, a civilian version of the Vietnam War-era UH-1N "Twin Huey".
The Bell 212 was originally designed for the Canadian military in the late 1960s as an upgrade to the UH-1 Iroquois. It features two turboshaft engines, providing greater carrying capacity. The helicopter was introduced in 1971 and has since been widely used by governments and private operators worldwide.
The most recent fatal crash of a Bell 212 was in September 2023, when a privately operated aircraft crashed off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit focusing on aviation safety. The most recent Iranian crash of the type was in 2018, killing four people, according to the organisation's database.