By Farnaz Fassihi
Rescuers are trying to locate the helicopter on which President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian were traveling, state media reported. Their status is unknown.
A helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran crashed on Sunday in a remote part of the country, according to Iranian state media, prompting a massive search-and-rescue operation for the second most powerful individual in Iran’s political structure. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, asked Iranians to “pray for the health” of Mr. Raisi and those who were traveling with him — including Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian. In an address carried live on state television, he said the “people of Iran must not be anxious or worried” and that there will be no disruption to the country’s security or governance.
The crash came at a delicate moment for international relations — just days after senior American and Iranian officials held talks through intermediaries to try to tamp down the threat of a wider conflict in the Middle East. The U.S. State Department said it was closely following the reports about the crash, and the White House said President Biden had been briefed.
State media reported that Brig. General Mohammad Bagheri, the head of Iran’s armed forces, said the army and the Revolutionary Guards had been deployed to the search area, a few miles south of the border with Azerbaijan. At least 20 search and rescue teams were also involved in the effort, according to state media, which said that inclement weather was complicating the operation.
Videos posted to Instagram by the Iranian Red Crescent Society showed rescue teams trekking through heavy fog and difficult terrain in search of the crash site.
Here are the latest developments:
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The government canceled a planned cabinet meeting and instead convened an emergency meeting with the country’s crisis management committee, state media reported.
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Offers for assistance poured in from countries in the region and beyond. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq instructed his country’s interior ministry and other relevant parties to offer to help. And the European Union activated its Copernicus satellite system at the request of Iran to offer emergency mapping services, according to the bloc’s chief for crisis management, Janez Lenarcic.
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Mr. Raisi had met with Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, earlier on Sunday. Mr. Aliyev wrote on X that he was “profoundly troubled” to learn about the crash “after bidding a friendly farewell” to the Iranian president. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said on X that he was “waiting with great anxiety for good news.”
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At the time of the crash, a delegation of ministers was traveling with Mr. Raisi in a convoy of three helicopters, state media reported, adding that the two other aircraft had reached their destinations.
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Iran’s law stipulates that if the president dies, power is transferred to the first vice president and an election must be called within six months. The first vice president is Mohammad Mokhber, a conservative politician.
United Nations spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that Secretary-General António Guterres was closely following the news of the helicopter crash. “The secretary-general is following reports of an incident with Iranian President Raisi’s aircraft with concern,” he said in a statement. “He hopes for the safety of the president and his entourage.”
Ali Bahaador Jahromi, an Iranian government spokesman, wrote on social media late Sunday that there was no new information on what he called a “difficult and complicated situation.” He said the “geographical location of the accident and weather” had delayed updates on the crash.
