The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, on Monday, ordered an investigation to uncover the causes of the presidential helicopter crash in an accident that claimed the lives of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Amir Hossein Abdullahian, according to what Agence France-Presse reported from local media.
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported that Bagheri ordered “a high-level committee to open an investigation into the cause of the president’s helicopter crash.”
In a related context, Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Monday that the signal system of the helicopter that crashed on Sunday was not activated, or that the plane did not have such a system.
On Sunday, Iranian President Raisi’s helicopter crashed in a remote mountainous area in northwestern Iran, leaving behind a black trail extending a long distance amid a dense fog through which scattered debris is visible.
State broadcaster IRIB said emergency services faced enormous difficulties in locating the plane, which “hit a mountain and crashed” during the collision.
The accident occurred on Sunday between 13:30 and 14:00 (10:30 GMT) after the Iranian president left the Julfa region in East Azerbaijan Province (west), heading to the city of Tabriz in the northwest of the country.
The delegation’s two other helicopters arrived at their destination safely.
