Rescue team work following a crash of a helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran
Credit: Reuters Photo
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner long seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border, officials and state media said on Monday.
The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard-like conditions.
"President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash," a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Raisi's death was later confirmed in a statement on social media by Vice President Mohsen Mansouri and on state television.
State TV reported that images from the site showed the aircraft slammed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.
Where did the crash take place? Why did it take so long to reach the crash site?
The crash took place in Dizmar, near the town of Varzaghan. This is a rough mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border, which made the search operation a challenging task.
Rescue teams fought blizzards and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in the early hours of Monday.
Video showed a rescue team, wearing bright jackets and head torches, huddled around a GPS device as they searched a pitch-black mountainside on foot in a blizzard.
Pictures from the site also reveal that the helicopter crashed on a steep, densely forested slope.
Rescue teams from Red Crescent were spotted on a steep slope as they were trying to approach the crash site in the midst of thick fog, Gulf News reported.
With Reuters inputs