According to Iran’s official investigation, bad weather was the cause of the helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi in May. Seven people, including Raisi’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, died in the fog-covered mountaintop disaster in northern Iran.
The special board examining the disaster blamed Spring’s “complex climatic and atmospheric conditions” for the crash. The aircraft hit the mountain due to a sudden and strong fog, according to state broadcaster IRIB.
Early reports from Iran’s army ruled out criminal activity, citing bad weather. Overloading the helicopter with passengers, which violated security regulations, may have caused the tragedy, Fars said in August. The Iranian military denied protocol violations, quickly refuting this claim.
The helicopter crash killed high-ranking officials and prompted emergency elections in Iran. Weather conditions were crucial to this deadly tragedy, as the investigation found.
Image Credit: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/21/1252441894/iran-helicopter-crash-safety-president-raisi
