Iran helicopter president crash latest: Ebrahim Raisi dead as wreckage found on side of steep mountain

The aircraft went down in between Jolfa and Varzaqan, a region on the border of Azerbaijani exclave Nakhchivan, around 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital Tehran.

The EU has activated its rapid response mapping service to assist in locating Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi following his helicopter crash.

“Upon Iranian request for assistance we are activating the EU’s @CopernicusEMS rapid response mapping service in view of to the helicopter accident reportedly carrying the President of #Iran and its foreign minister,” EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said on X.

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) is a service funded by the EU, which provides timely and accurate geospatial information for disaster management, humanitarian crises, and man-made emergencies.

Hopes of finding Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi alive began to fade after the wreckage of his helicopter was located earlier on Monday by the slope of a mountain.“

President “Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash … unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” an official told Reuters.

Rescue teams fought blizzards and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province.

“We can see the wreckage and the situation does not look good,” the head of Iran’s Red Crescent, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media.

There has been “no sign of life” detected at the crash site of a helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian state TV said on Monday.

The statement comes minutes after the Iranian Red Crescent said its search and rescue teams have reached the crash site of the helicopter carrying the president, foreign minister and other senior officials.

Rescuers have found a helicopter that was carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, as well as the country’s foreign minister and other senior officials, that had apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran yesterday.

The helicopter was seen from a distance of some 2km, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media.

Turkish authorities this morning released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be the wreckage of helicopter”.

The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20km south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.

Born to a conservative family in eastern Iran, Raisi studied theology at the seminaries in Qom, a city just south of the Iranian capital Tehran.

He was a teenager when the country’s Islamic revolution established Iran as a theocracy in 1979 and he quickly became an enthusiastic participant in enforcing the vision of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

At 21 years old, Raisi began serving as a prosecutor, pursuing politically charged cases in the cities of Karaj and Hamadan. He gained a reputation as one of the regime’s most severe figures – a young, brash ideologue, willing to get his hands dirty.

Read the full article by Athena Stavrou here:

The aircraft had a “rough landing” near Jolfa, the Iranian city on the border of Azerbaijan exclave Nakhchivan, around 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital Tehran.

It was carrying Raisi, 63, and Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian following a visit with the Azerbaijani president to discuss an infrastructure project over the Aras River.

It was described as a crash by a local official, but he acknowledged an enormous search operation involving 16 teams had yet to locate the helicopter to confirm the extent of the incident.