DUBAI, May 19 (Reuters) - A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister crashed on Sunday as it was crossing mountain terrain in heavy fog, an Iranian official told Reuters, and rescuers were struggling to reach the site of the incident.

The official said the lives of Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were “at risk following the helicopter crash”, which happened on the way back from a visit to the border with Azerbaijan in Iran’s northwest.

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    2514·
    6 months ago

    I guess it doesn’t matter if Israel is behind this or not, because they’re going to get the blame in any case…

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      281·
      6 months ago

      Hopefully not. Helicopters legitimately do just crash a lot in foggy conditions, and rugged terrain doesn’t help.

      If it was Israel, they did a very good job picking a moment Raisi was somewhat likely to die anyway.

      • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
        101·
        6 months ago

        The Israeli government isn’t exactly known for their subtly… UNLESS… They’ve deliberately been shit at hiding it before so this time everyone would assume it couldn’t have been them…Netanyahu is a stable genius playing 4D chess…!

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.caEnglish
        41·
        6 months ago

        Their helicopters are also generally old and with scarce replacement parts due to sanctions. Mechanical failure could easily be the case if not the terrain.

      • Eggyhead@kbin.run
        3·
        6 months ago

        Not just rugged, but mountain terrain. Having to go high means thinner air and less lift. Coupled with the fog, I think they might have put themselves in quite a precarious situation.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          Seems unnecessarily dangerous to run in fog. I know a geologist that works for a mining company in parts of the world like this and they say that anything other than pristine weather basically grounds a helicopter flight. It probably isn’t a risk most of the time but why risk it?

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Huh, TIL there’s a distinction. Where is mountainous considered to begin?

          I feel like if there was a pamphlet people got upon becoming rich and famous, “don’t helicopter through foggy mountains” would have to be on it.

          • Eggyhead@kbin.run
            2·
            6 months ago

            Well, I suppose you could call a mountain rugged, but I wouldn’t say rugged is exclusively mountainous. I wanted to emphasize mountainous because I had an ESL student who was a pilot in training, and he had told me all about the dangers of mountains specifically.