Iran says used own drones to locate Raisi’s helicopter

Rescue team members work at the crash site of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan northwestern Iran on May 20, 2024. (MOJ News Agency/AFP)

Huge crowds of Iranians thronged the streets of the capital Tehran on May 22 for the funeral procession of president Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, who died in a helicopter crash. (AFP)

• A huge search and rescue operation for Raisi’s helicopter involved help from the European Union, Russia and Turkiye
• Drone dispatched by Turkiye had failed to locate the crash site, Iran says

TEHRAN: The Iranian military said Wednesday that it had used domestically produced drones to locate the helicopter of president Ebrahim Raisi after it crashed in the northwestern mountains.
Raisi’s helicopter came down on a fog-shrouded mountainside on Sunday as it returned to the city of Tabriz from a ceremony on the border with Azerbaijan.
A huge search and rescue operation was launched, involving help from the European Union, Russia and Turkiye before the crash site was located early on Monday.
The Iranian military said that a drone dispatched by Turkiye had failed to locate the crash site “despite having night-vison equipment“
“This drone failed to accurately announce the location of the helicopter crash and finally returned to Turkiye,” the military said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency
“Finally, in the early hours of Monday morning, the exact spot of the helicopter crash was discovered by the ground rescue forces and Iranian drones of the armed forces.”
Armed forces chief Mohammad Bagheri has ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash, which also killed seven members of Raisi’s entourage, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.