A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on May 19, Iranian state media reported, without elaborating. Some urged the public to pray for Raisi and the others on board as rescue crews sped through a misty, rural forest where his helicopter was believed to be.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, about 600 kilometers northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Later, TV placed the incident farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the Governor of East Azerbaijan province, and other officials and bodyguards were traveling with Raisi, state-run IRNA news agency reported. One local government official used the word “crash” to describe the incident, but he acknowledged to an Iranian newspaper that he had yet to reach the site himself. Deep concern surrounded President Raisi's helicopter flight today. People stand in solidarity with the Iranian people in this hour of distress, and pray for the well-being of the president and his entourage.
Raisi had been in Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third one the two nations have built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations, including over a gun attack on Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran in 2023, and Azerbaijan’s diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran’s Shia theocracy views as its main enemy in the region. Iran flies various helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged Iranians to “not worry” about the leadership of the Islamic republic, saying “there will be no disruption in the country’s work.” “We hope that Almighty God will bring our dear president and his companions back in full health into the arms of the nation,” he said in a nationally televised address as Muslim faithful prayed for Raisi’s safe return.
Search operations underway
Iran’s cabinet held an emergency meeting led by Vice President Mohammad Mokhber after the incident, IRNA reported. Raisi’s convoy had included three helicopters, and the other two had “reached their destination safely,” said the Tasnim news agency. More than 60 rescue teams using search dogs and drones were sent to the mountainous protected forest area of Dizmar near the town of Varzaghan, IRNA reported. Army, Revolutionary Guard, and police officers joined the search, authorities said, as TV stations showed pictures of Red Crescent teams walking up a hill in the mist, and rows of waiting emergency response vehicles.
In comments aired on state TV, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said: “The esteemed president and company were on their way back aboard some helicopters and one of the helicopters was forced to make a hard landing due to the bad weather and fog.” “Various rescue teams are on their way to the region but because of the poor weather and fogginess it might take time for them to reach the helicopter.” IRNA called the area a “forest” and the region is also known to be mountainous. State TV aired images of SUVs racing through a wooded area, hampered by poor weather conditions, including heavy rain and wind. Rescuers could be seen walking in the fog and mist.
A rescue helicopter tried to reach the area where authorities believe Raisi’s helicopter was, but it couldn’t land due to heavy mist, emergency services spokesman Babak Yektaparast told IRNA. Late in the evening, Turkey’s defense ministry announced it had sent an unmanned aerial vehicle and was preparing to send a helicopter with night vision capabilities to join the search-and-rescue efforts.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s protégé
Raisi, 63, is a hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary. He is viewed as a protégé of Khamenei and some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after his death or resignation from the role.
Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.
Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also continues arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The U.S. State Department said it was “closely following reports of a possible hard landing of a helicopter in Iran carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister.” It added: “We have no further comment at this time.”
Russia is sending a team of rescuers to Iran to help search for the helicopter carrying Raisi, Moscow announced on May 20. “At the request of the Iranian side, rescuers from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations will assist in the search and rescue operation,” the Ministry wrote in a statement published on Telegram. The team, which “consists of 47 specialists with the necessary gear and equipment, all-terrain vehicles, as well as a BO-105 helicopter,” will head to the northwest city of Tabriz, it said.
Earlier, the country’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, said, “Russia is ready to extend all necessary help in the search for the missing helicopter and the investigation of the reasons for the incident.” She said, “We sincerely hope that they are alive and that nothing is threatening their lives and health.”
Iraq on May 19 offered neighboring Iran help in search and rescue efforts after Iranian state media said Raisi’s helicopter was involved in “an accident” in poor weather conditions. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani “instructed the interior ministry, the Iraqi Red Crescent and other relevant authorities to offer the Islamic Republic of Iran the available resources to aid in the search for the Iranian president’s aircraft,” government spokesman Bassem al-Awadi said in a statement.
The European Union has activated its “rapid response mapping service” to help Iran search for Raisi’s helicopter. “Upon Iranian request for assistance, we are activating the EU’s CopernicusEMS rapid response mapping service in view of the helicopter accident reportedly carrying the President of Iran and its foreign minister” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said on X.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has offered to help with the response. “We affirm that the Kingdom stands by the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran in these difficult circumstances and its readiness to provide any assistance that the Iranian agencies need,” the Foreign Ministry of the Gulf kingdom, a longtime rival of Iran, said in a statement.
In a statement on X, Qatar expressed its “deep concern” over the helicopter carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister and offered “to provide all forms of support in the search.” The Gulf state’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari gave “Qatar’s wishes for the safety of the president, the foreign minister, and their companions,” the statement added.
Shiite-majority Iran and Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia have long been on opposing sides of regional conflicts, including in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. In 2016, bilateral ties were severed after attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran during protests over Riyadh’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. However, in March 2023, the two nations announced a surprise rapprochement brokered by China, and they have been in relatively frequent contact in recent months as they worked to contain the war triggered in Gaza by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani expressed gratitude for “governments and international organizations for their sympathy and offer of help in the search and rescue operations.”
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