Iran president helicopter crash:
Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister have died, state TV says – live updates
Some media report Raisi killed in helicopter Crash
Some media are reporting that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian died when their helicopter crashed, but there has been no official confirmation as yet.
The two were killed when the helicopter crashed on a mountain in heavy fog in the province of East Azerbaijan, a senior Iranian official told Reuters. He asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject, the wire reported.
“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” Reuters quoted him as saying.
Iran’s Mehr news agency meanwhile reported that all passengers on board “were martyred”.
It said others on board included the governor of East Azerbaijan, Malek Rahmati, as well as Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution to East Azarbaijan province. Several other people were also on board,
A screen grab from a video released by the Iranian Red Crescent shows the helicopter wreck
A frame grab from video released by the Iranian Red Crescent on Monday shows the wreckage of the helicopter that was carrying President Ebrahim Raisi in East Azerbaijan province. Photograph: Iranian Red Crescent/AFP/Getty Images
Reuters has put together some background on the Bell 212 helicopter in which Raisi was believed to have been travelling when it crashed. It is the civilian version of the ubiquitous Vietnam War-era UH-1N “Twin Huey,” and is in wide use globally by both governments and private operators:
What are the helicopter’s origins?
Bell Helicopter (now Bell Textron, a division of Textron Inc ) developed the aircraft for the Canadian military in the late 1960s as an upgrade of the original UH-1 Iroquois. The new design used two turboshaft engines instead of one, giving it greater carrying capacity. The helicopter was introduced in 1971 and quickly adopted by both the United States and Canada, according to U.S. military training documents.
What is it used for?
As a utility helicopter - the UH in its military designation represents those words - the Bell 212 is meant to be adaptable to all sorts of situations, including carrying people, deploying aerial firefighting gear, ferrying cargo and mounting weapons.
The Iranian model that crashed on Sunday was configured to carry government passengers. Bell Helicopter advertises the latest version, the Subaru Bell 412, for police use, medical transport, troop transport, the energy industry and firefighting. According to its type certification documents with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, it can carry 15 people, including the crew.
Who uses it?
Non-military organisations that fly the Bell 212 include Japan’s Coast Guard; law enforcement agencies and fire departments in the US; Thailand’s national police; and many others. It is not clear how many Iran’s government operates, but its air force and navy have a total of 10, according to FlightGlobal’s 2024 World Air Forces directory.
Have there been any other incidents involving the Bell 212?
The most recent fatal crash of a Bell 212 was in September 2023, when a privately operated aircraft crashed off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit focusing on aviation safety. The most recent Iranian crash of the type was in 2018, killing four people, according to the organisation’s database.
The helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi takes off, before it crashed, near the border of Iran and Azerbaijan. Photograph: Ali Hamed Haghdoust/Reuters
This is what we're up against
Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.
Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.
Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.
Bad actors spreading disinformation online to undermine democracy.
***
But we have something powerful on our side.
We’ve got you.
The Guardian is funded by readers, like you in Bangladesh, and the only person who decides what we publish is our editor.
If you want to join us in our mission to share independent, global journalism to the world, we’d love to have you on side
