'No sign of life' at crash site of helicopter carrying Iran's prez
As the sun rose Monday, rescuers saw the helicopter from a distance of some 2 kilometers (1.25 miles), the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media
AP
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
Dubai, 20 May
Rescuers on Monday found a
helicopter that was carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's
foreign minister and other officials that had apparently crashed in the
mountainous northwest reaches of Iran the day before, though “no sign of life” was
detected, state media reported.
As the sun rose Monday, rescuers
saw the helicopter from a distance of some 2 kilometers (1.25 miles), the head
of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media. He
did not elaborate and the officials had been missing at that point by over 12
hours.
The incident comes as Iran under
Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched an unprecedented
drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer
than ever to weapons-grade levels.
Iran has also faced years of mass
protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women's rights
- making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the
country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East.
Raisi was travelling in Iran's East
Azerbaijan province. State TV said what it called a “hard landing” happened
near Jolfa, a city on the border with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600
kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, state
TV put it farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained
contradictory.
With Raisi were Iran's Foreign
Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan
province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run IRNA news agency
reported. One local government official used the word “crash,” but others referred
to either a “hard landing” or an “incident.”
Early Monday morning, Turkish
authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared
to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be wreckage of
helicopter.” The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20 kilometers
(12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep
mountain.
Footage released by the IRNA early
Monday showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep
valley in a green mountain range. Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language
said: “There it is, we found it.”
Shortly after, state TV in an
on-screen scrolling text said: “There is no sign of live from people on board.”
It did not elaborate, but the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed rescuers
using a small drone to fly over the site, with them speaking among themselves
saying the same thing.
Hard-liners had urged the public to
pray. State TV aired images of hundreds of the faithful, some with their hands
outstretched in supplication, praying at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of
Mashhad, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, as well as in Qom and other
locations across the country. State television's main channel aired the prayers
nonstop.
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