The Iranian authorities decided to land paratroopers in the area of the Raisi helicopter crash.
Photo: REUTERS
Iranian media, citing security force sources, reported that they decided to use paratroopers in the rescue operation to search for Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, the country’s Foreign Minister, other passengers and crew members of the missing helicopter. . In addition to the rescuers, IRGC and army forces were sent to the search area. And officials are publishing very strange reports of “ghost” calls from those on board.
An American-made Bell 212 helicopter (such data was published by the Tasnim agency) crashed in eastern Azerbaijan; This Iranian province has difficult mountainous terrain, the car crashed in a forested area. The emergency occurred around 15:30 on May 19, 2024, during Raisi’s return from events in Azerbaijan, where he, together with Aliyev, inaugurated dams on the Araks River.
Rescuers have not yet been able to find the presidential plane. According to the representative of the Iranian Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, “three coordinate points where the helicopter could be located” had already been checked, but nothing was found.
A representative of the rescue organization said on air on Irbinews: the length of the search zone is 20 kilometers.
Bad weather (rain, fog) and mountainous terrain make the search difficult. Extreme weather conditions will continue for another day.
Throughout the afternoon there was conflicting news from Iran. Both officials and the press reported on the calls from the crash site and then added: this needs to be verified. Either they were happy about the discovery of the helicopter or they deleted these messages.
Now the commander of the army of East Azerbaijan, Tabnak agency writes, spoke about a signal received “a few minutes ago” from the mobile phone of one of the passengers.
The Mehr agency publishes a comment from Deputy Foreign Minister Safari, whose boss was in the helicopter with Raisi. According to Safari, they allegedly managed to contact Tabriz Imam Syed Mohammad-Ali al-Hashem twice, who was flying on the presidential flight, who reported that he “feels unwell” and “hears ambulance sirens.” In fact, the nearest town, Varzakan, is now inundated with ambulances, but it sounds very strange.
And if there really were calls, why were they only able to get in touch at such long intervals? Did people lose consciousness?
And why was it not possible to immediately determine the location of the presidential helicopter? Iranian journalists mentioned: They initially tried to determine the point using a helicopter GPS tracker. Iran then asked the EU to use the Copernicus satellite data analysis system to find the coordinates, meaning the GPS signal was clearly lost at some point.
Nothing is known about the cause of the accident. Bad weather? But the other two planes with members of the delegation returned without problems… They are discussing the version of the terrorist attack, because Iran and Raisi have enough enemies.
In addition to paratroopers, the Iranians want to use helicopters with night vision systems; Tehran asked Turkey for help, since the Iranian vehicles with such equipment are further from the scene of the incident than the Turkish ones. The Turks provided powerful drones, including Bayraktars, and a Cougar helicopter.
Spiritual leaders call on the people of Iran to pray and remain calm. For now, it is clear that the objective of unconfirmed optimistic reports is precisely to reassure citizens.
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