Ebrahim Raisi had just finished opening two dams on the Aras river with Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, when he climbed into a helicopter bound for Tabriz. He never arrived. The Bell 212 went down in fog and rain on Sunday, 19 May 2024, and everyone aboard died: Iran’s president and seven others.
The dead included Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Malek Rahmati, governor of East Azerbaijan province. Also killed were Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, Tabriz’s Friday prayer leader and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in the province, and Brig-Gen Mohammad Mehdi Mousavi, head of the president’s security team. Pilots Col Mohsen Daryanush and Col Taher Mostafavi and technician Maj Behrouz Qadimi made up the crew. Major General Hossein Salami, the Revolutionary Guard commander, named them.
Three helicopters, one missing
Raisi had been due at a project at the Tabriz oil refinery, about 130km (80 miles) south of the dam. His helicopter travelled in a convoy of three. Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili, head of the president’s office, was in one of the others and said the flight took off around 13:00 in normal weather. About 45 minutes in, Raisi’s pilot, who led the convoy, told the others to climb over a cloud. Half a minute later Esmaeili’s pilot looked for the president’s aircraft, which had been flying in the middle, and it was gone.
The crash happened at around 13:30 local time, roughly 2km south-west of the village of Uzi in a remote, mountainous part of Varzaqan County. The two other helicopters searched for 15 to 20 minutes, then landed. Esmaeili’s came down at the nearby Sungun copper mine.
Someone did answer the phone. Ale-Hashem picked up the call to the pilot’s mobile, and he told Esmaeili: “I don’t feel good, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know where I am, I’m under trees, I don’t know, I don’t see anyone, I’m alone.” Rescuers kept speaking to him for about three hours but he died before they got there, according to Esmaeili’s account. Crisis management chief Mohammad Nami said the ayatollah lived for an hour after the impact.
Hours of silence
State TV did not report anything until after 16:00, when it spoke of a “hard landing”. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the aircraft was forced down by bad weather and fog, and that fog, snow, rain and rough terrain were slowing the rescue teams. Vice President Mohsen Mansouri said contact had been made with two people on board, which he took to mean the incident was not so severe.
That hope ended after daybreak on Monday. At about 05:00 rescuers spotted the wreckage from around 2km away and needed another hour to reach it, Iranian Red Crescent head Pirhossein Kolivand said. At about 2,200m (7,200ft) they found “no signs of life”. Nami said every body could be identified without DNA tests.
Several countries offered help with the search, among them Russia, Turkey, Qatar and Iraq. Turkey sent an unarmed Bayraktar Akinci drone, and the Turkish drone’s data put the site on a steep mountain slope. Iran later said its own drones located it.
After the crash
Khamenei called it a “bitter tragedy” and declared five days of public mourning. Vice President Mohammad Mokhber became acting president, and Ali Baqeri Kani took over as acting foreign minister. The cabinet promised there would be “no problem with management of the country”. Under the constitution, an election for a new president had to follow within a maximum of 50 days, and it was set for 28 June.
Funerals began in Tabriz on 21 May, where crowds estimated in the tens of thousands followed the remains. A ceremony led by Khamenei took place at Tehran University the next day. Raisi was buried on 23 May at the Imam Reza shrine in his home city of Mashhad.
Not everyone grieved. Videos of fireworks and dancing spread on social media, and police in Tehran warned that anyone seen celebrating Raisi’s death in public would be prosecuted. Iran’s military said in a preliminary report on 23 May that the helicopter caught fire after hitting an elevated area, and it found no evidence of foul play. In its final report on 1 September, the armed forces blamed poor weather, including thick fog.
Sources
- 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash – Wikipedia
- Iran helicopter crash: What we know about how Ebrahim Raisi died
- Ebrahim Raisi
Sources
- 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash – Wikipedia
- Iran helicopter crash: What we know about how Ebrahim Raisi died
