After a night of arduous searches, the helicopter in which Iranian President Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdollahian were travelling was finally found, but there was no sign of survival at the scene. Judging by the video taken by the drone, the helicopter crashed directly into the mountain, and apparently experienced explosions and fires, and the wreckage was burned to a black charcoal color, only the remaining tail was barely distinguishable. And the Iranian side has also confirmed: the country's president and foreign minister have been killed, and no miracles have happened.
Iranian President Raisi is visiting neighboring Azerbaijan, and on May 19, the day of the incident, Raisi and President Aliyev of Azerbaijan inaugurated a dam. Raisi's team then returned in three helicopters, with Raisi himself and Foreign Minister Abdollahian on one of the helicopters.
This arrangement is a bit strange, the president is the head of state, the foreign minister is also a heavyweight, and several other high-ranking officials are actually flying in the same helicopter. This risk factor is quite high, as long as this plane has an accident, several core figures of the Iranian leadership will be put to a damn, is there no one to warn in advance? Could there be spies playing tricks on the spy?
Despite all the doubts, Raisi's helicopter took off. Judging from the take-off picture, the helicopter should be an American-made Bell 212 with an age of more than 20 years. As the head of Iran, who has always been at odds with the United States, it is also quite strange to fly in an old American-made helicopter, and it turned out to be really an accident!
On the afternoon of May 19, when the helicopter flew into the mountains of East Azerbaijan Province on the territory of Iran, it suddenly encountered a heavy fog. Two of the three helicopters passed the section safely and finally reached their destination, but it was the same helicopter that Leahy was sitting on, which failed to fly out of the rugged mountainous area and disappeared in the dense fog.
Here there is Rashomon again. According to the earliest information released by Iranian state media, the president's plane had a "hard landing", and the situation did not appear to be particularly serious, and there was even news that Raisi and his entourage were in good condition and were transferring to a car to their destination. Many Iranians breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the news, only to turn out afterwards that it was outright fake news and it was not known where it came from.
In fact, the helicopter must have crashed, and it is not known where it crashed. At one point, the Iranian side claimed to have received a signal from a helicopter and a mobile phone signal from one of the crew members, and it was supposed that the helicopter should be located quickly. But in fact, Iranian rescuers encountered great difficulties, the area is steep and densely wooded, and the journey is particularly difficult, the key is that the fog has not cleared for a long time, and the visibility is extremely low, even to the point that there are no people on the other side.
It is conceivable that at that time, Leahy's helicopter crashed headlong into the fog, unable to distinguish the direction at all, and did not know if there was a mountain ahead, and as a result, it crashed into the mountain. But until this time, the fate of Iran's president and foreign minister was still uncertain, and the search for rescue teams was slow. However, thanks to drones provided by Turkey, an unusual infrared heat source was found during a search over the area in the early hours of May 20, which determined the location of the Iranian president's crash.
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By the time rescuers finally arrived at the crash site, it seemed to be dawning. Photographs of the area using drones revealed that the helicopter had been so badly damaged that it had been completely burned out except for its tail, and no survivors had been found. President Raisi and the foreign minister have both been confirmed dead, and the crash was clearly tragic, and their bodies are likely to be mutilated or badly burned.
In such a serious crash, the Iranian president as the head of state, as well as the foreign minister and other heavyweight high-ranking officials, cannot but give rise to various speculations, including conjectures about spying sabotage. Iran's relations with its neighbors are very delicate, especially with Israel in the Middle East, which has almost torn its face and was on the brink of war at one point.
First, Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Syrian capital, on April 1, killing 13 people, seven of whom were senior Iranian military personnel. Iran then retaliated on April 13 on a massive scale, firing hundreds of missiles and drones into the Israeli mainland and using hypersonic missiles to penetrate defenses. Although Iran is targeting Israeli military bases and causing limited damage, it is a large demonstration of Iran's ability to strike targets on Israeli soil.
Israel, of course, is not a fuel-efficient lamp, and then launched an attack on Iran mainland on April 19 that crossed the airspace of several countries, reportedly using an air-launched ballistic missile with stealth capabilities, which hit a military base in Iran's Isfahan region. It is only because the United States does not want to make a big deal about the Middle East and affect its Asian strategy that it forcibly suppresses Israel, and the two countries have not really started a war, but they have always been tense.
Now that the Iranian president has actually crashed and died, there are many doubts about the matter, and people cannot but suspect Israel. Israel has a world-famous secret service organization called the "Mossad", which is very good at carrying out assassinations. If Mossad agents had obtained detailed itinerary from the Iranian president in advance, as well as the weather conditions on the flight route, it is possible that they would have manipulated the helicopter. For example, the radio altimeter on an airplane can be destroyed so that it does not reflect the true altitude, allowing the helicopter to crash into a mountain in dense fog.
However, this idea is only speculation. Of course, the helicopter is equipped with a radio altimeter, which can transmit radio waves to the ground, and then receive echoes, and calculate the height of the aircraft from the ground through the time difference. However, this altimeter can only measure the distance between the area directly below and the aircraft, and the radio altimeter cannot alert the pilot if there is a large mountain in front of the aircraft and there is no radar on the aircraft.
And in the fog, the pilot's vision is severely restricted, and it is not surprising that he hit the mountain. In fact, many modern helicopters have been equipped with anti-collision radars, which can detect nearby obstacles through millimeter-wave, laser and infrared means, and then avoid them in advance. If the helicopter in which the Iranian president was flying was equipped with an anti-collision radar, the probability of hitting a mountain could be greatly reduced, and perhaps Raisi would have survived.
But Leahy is riding an American-made Bell 212 helicopter, which was jointly developed by the American Bell Helicopter Company, P&W Canada and later the Canadian government that provided financial support, dating back to the 60s of the last century, and the first flight was in 1969, which is technically quite old.
The Bell 212 is a civilian version developed on the basis of the UH-1 "Huey" helicopter that shined in the Vietnam War, using two PT6T-3 engines, with a maximum aircraft weight of about 5 tons, a maximum range of 420 kilometers, a maximum speed of 185 kilometers / h, and a practical ceiling of 3960 meters. Judging from the parameters, the ceiling of this helicopter is not high, and when flying in mountainous areas at higher altitudes, even if it flies to the maximum altitude, the distance from the mountain peak is not particularly far, which is very unfavorable to safety.
And these Bell 212s, which Iran has, were purchased from Canada during the era of former President Khatami, and the aircraft are at least 20 years old. Regardless of Iran's strong missile and drone technology, it has achieved so little in terms of helicopters that require so high technical level and reliability that even the president is still using old American helicopters.
It is unlikely that such an old aircraft will be equipped with millimeter-wave and laser collision avoidance radars. Moreover, because Iran has been sanctioned by the Western camp for a long time, it is difficult to guarantee the maintenance and spare parts supply of American-made helicopters, and the state should not be much better, and it is really difficult to use it as a presidential plane.
Therefore, when the helicopter plunged headlong into the dense fog, the surroundings were white, and the pilot could not judge whether there were mountains blocking the way, so he collided directly with the mountain, and the helicopter was smashed into pieces, and it was likely to catch fire. And the President Raisi and the foreign minister and other senior officials on the plane should have died on the spot.
After the crash, Israel immediately stated that the incident had nothing to do with him, indicating that Israel did not want to provoke Iran and start a war at this time. Considering that although the President of Iran is the head of state, he does not have the final say. The real decision-making power is in the hands of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Ali Khamenei, who sets important policies. If Israel really kills Raisi, it will not reap substantial benefits, so it is not necessarily Israel's doing.
Therefore, although the Iranian presidential plane crash cannot completely rule out the existence of espionage, the probability is not very large. The main reason is the fog, as well as the lack of necessary equipment and the poor state of the presidential landline.
Now that the Iranian president is dead, so is the foreign minister, it will definitely provoke political turmoil in Iran. Although Khamenei is in the presence and it is unlikely that there will be a major chaos, it remains to be seen whether the successor president will make a policy shift and whether he will resume fighting with Israel after taking office.