The President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, is reported to have lost his life together with the Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian after the helicopter crash.
The news was made known by official Iran, through a post on the X platform of the Iranian vice president.
Iranian state television gave the official news of President Ebrahim Raisi’s death, calling him a “martyr of service” and specifying that the place and time of the funeral ceremony would be announced.
Raisi was traveling by helicopter to the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz after returning from an Iran-Azerbaijan border area where he met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to inaugurate a dam on the border between the two countries. In the city of Tabriz, Raisi was going to inaugurate a refinery, but the helicopter crashed, allegedly due to bad weather conditions. The accident happened around 13:30 on May 19.
According to foreign media, there are no survivors from the other 7 people who were on board. Besides the President and the Foreign Minister, the governor of East Azerbaijan, Melek Rahmati, the imam of Tabriz Mohammad Ali Al Hashem, the pilot, a co-pilot, the head of the defense team and one of the guards also died.
