Reports from local media have disclosed that the helicopter transporting Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi vanished mere moments after the pilot requested the two accompanying aircraft to ascend above the dense clouds encountered during their journey back from the Azerbaijan border region on Sunday.This was revealed by the late leader's chief of staff, Gholam-Hossein Esmaili.
Esmaili, who was on board one of the other helicopters, said that President Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and most other passengers in the hard landing of their aircraft were killed on the spot.
However, Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the Supreme Leader's East Azerbaijan representative, managed to survive for a few hours.
It was Ale-Hashem who was initially contacted and informed about the accident, albeit in a state of confusion. This initial communication sparked hope that other passengers might have also survived, Esmaili mentioned in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network (IRINN) late on Tuesday.
Esmaili detailed that at the commencement of the journey, weather conditions were normal, but approximately 45 minutes later, Raisi's helicopter pilot decided to increase altitude to evade the thick clouds, advising the other two helicopters to follow suit. However, once the accompanying helicopters began ascending, they lost sight of the President's aircraft.
After flying above the clouds for some 30 seconds, the pilot lost sight of the helicopter carrying Raisi. Attempts to find it by circling the area were unsuccessful due to the bad visibility.
The radio contacts with Raisi's aircraft were tried repeatedly, and finally, Ale-Hashem managed to respond and said that the helicopter had crashed into a valley.
"When we managed to reach the accident site, the bodies' condition showed that Ayatollah Raisi and other passengers on board had died on the spot, but Ale-Hashem remained alive for a few hours," said Esmaili.
Raisi had been on his way back from a meeting with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, with whom he had inaugurated a key dam project on the border between the two countries. His helicopter disappeared in the bad weather and darkness. The search for it had continued for hours. More than ten hours later, rescue teams managed to reach the crash site and confirmed the deaths of Raisi, Amir-Abdollahian, and other passengers.
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