The helicopter crash that killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and seven other people in May was caused by challenging climatic and atmospheric conditions, Iranian state TV reported on Sunday.
The final report of the Supreme Board of the General Staff of the Armed Forces said the main reason for the helicopter crash was the complex climatic conditions in the region during the spring, state TV said.
The report also cited the sudden appearance of a thick mass of dense fog rising upwards as the helicopter collided with the mountain.
According to the report, there were no signs of sabotage in parts and systems.
Raisi died along with seven others, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who was 60, in the crash in a remote mountainous area of northwestern Iran. The helicopter was also carrying the governor of East Azerbaijan province, along with other officials and bodyguards, Iran’s state news agency IRNA said at the time of the crash.
Iranian Red Crescent Society / Handout / Anadolu via Getty Images
Turkish authorities released drone video showing a heat signature at a location in the wilderness that they “suspected to be the wreckage of a helicopter”. The coordinates given in the video sparked the fire about 12 miles south of the Azerbaijan-Iran border, on the side of a steep, forested mountain.
Raisi, a hardliner, had been seen as a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some analysts believed he could even replace the octogenarian supreme leader when the ayatollah dies or steps down.
He was the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days following the revolution.