The helicopter crash of Iranian regime president Ebrahim Raisi and conflicting comments and claims made by officials has fueled controversy within the regime.
The government newspaper Ham-Mihan wrote on May 24: “On the first day of the helicopter crash, two very important and interrelated issues stood out… The first issue was ‘incorrect and ambiguous information dissemination’ and the second was the incomprehensible statements of officials that not only do not resolve any ambiguities but add to them.”
The government newspaper Jomhouri Eslami, in its May 23 issue, wrote: “The fact that out of three Iranian helicopters returning from the border area to Tabriz, only the helicopter carrying the president experienced this incident, while it could rule out the incident being related to weather factors, strengthens the likelihood of it being a conspiracy.”
On May 24, a government journalist wrote on the Chand Saniyeh Telegram channel: “At first they said it landed safely, then they said it went to Tabriz by land, then they added it had a hard landing, then they claimed there was a phone call, and finally they gradually called for prayers, turning the eve of a holiday into mourning.”
Ali Nikzad, a member of the Majlis (parliament), said: “When I realized the president’s helicopter was off the radar, I immediately went to Varzeqan and the crisis headquarters at the Sungun Copper Mine. A villager who saw me said he witnessed the president’s helicopter crash and explained the incident to me, saying he saw how the helicopter was shaking. When he described the shakes to me, I understood what had happened.”
Gholamhossein Esmaeili, Raisi’s chief of staff, who was part of Raisi’s entourage, said: “At the time of the incident, the weather was clear and bright, and we had no special meteorological phenomenon.” (Source: Chand Saniyeh Telegram channel, May 24)
However, Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC Quds Force, quoted a meteorological expert from Zanjan and wrote: “The weather was overcast and cloudy, and the meteorological conditions were moving towards instability. By the time we reached the area, we witnessed scattered showers, severe thunderstorms, downpours, etc.”
The regime’s Eghtesad News website compared the government’s information dissemination about the helicopter crash to the information dissemination about the downing of the Ukrainian plane in 2020 and wrote: “Interestingly, it was announced that in the recent incident, judicial officials have summoned some media activists who produced content about the incident and published false news and have warned them. Meanwhile, a significant portion of this false news was published by officials and official media and even continued the next day.”
According to the official IRNA news agency, on May 24, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the regime, after four days of Raisi’s helicopter crash, issued a statement saying: “No bullet marks or similar items were observed on the remains of the crashed helicopter… The helicopter continued its pre-determined route and did not deviate from the designated flight path, and about one and a half minutes before the crash, the pilot of the crashed helicopter communicated with the other two helicopters of the flight group.”
The statement adds: “Due to the complexity of the area, fog, and low temperature, the search operations continued into the night and were sustained throughout the night, and at dawn on Monday morning (5:00 AM), with the help of drones (Iranian) and ground forces, the search operations reached that point.”
Prior to this, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the regime had denied the news of the plane wreckage being found by Turkish drones in a statement.
However, Anadolu, the official Turkish news agency, reported that Turkish drones found the helicopter wreckage and sent its coordinates to Iranian regime officials. This news agency also published images of the Turkish drone in the sky.
The government newspaper Ham-Mihan wrote about this: “While the official forces had not yet reached the crash site, Turkish journalists were present and reporting live from there. Additionally, civilian motorbike groups had arrived at the helicopter crash site before the government’s rescue teams.”