Iranian authorities came into contact on several occasions with two crew members of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who remains in unknown location after a forced landing in the northwest of the country.
“Contact was maintained with one of the helicopter crew members and a member of the flight crew,” it said. Mohsen Mansourivice president for executive affairs, to state television, without specifying when these communications took place.
“This shows that the severity of the accident was not very highas two people who were in that helicopter communicated with each other on several occasions,” Mansouri added.
The Iranian official said three helicopters left Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan province, at 1 pm local time and about 30 minutes later contact was lost with the aircraft carrying Raisi.
In addition to the president, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian; the governor of East Azerbaijan, Malik Rahmati; and the leader of Friday prayers in Tabriz, Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem.
Following the loss of contact, a major search and rescue operation was launched with at least 65 rescue teamsbut operations were hampered by bad weather, rain and dense fog in the mountainous area where the incident occurred after dark in Iran.
“We are searching with all our strength and are almost approaching what we believe to be the crash site,” local police said, according to Tasnim news agency.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, assured that, despite the situation, “there will be no interruption in the country’s functions”. Meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered in the holy cities of Mashad and Qom to pray for the well-being of the Iranian leader.
Raisi inaugurated a dam together with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the border between the two countries on Sunday, a project they both described as a step forward in bilateral relations.
The president of Iran came to power in 2021after winning the presidential election with the lowest turnout rate in the history of the Islamic Republic.
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