The head of the administration of the Iranian president Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, who accompanied Ebrahim Raisi in another helicopter, said that the weather at the time of the plane crash was favorable and one of the passengers of the crashed helicopter was alive for several hours, IRNA reported.
„Maybe there was fog in the depths of the gorge, but there was no fog along our flight path, which was slightly higher than the helicopter,” Esmaili said.
According to the official, the crew of the helicopter he was on noticed the presidential plane was missing about 30 seconds after its pilot ordered the rest of the crew to gain altitude to rise above the clouds. The crew then went in search of the missing helicopter and began trying to contact it. They managed to contact the imam of the city of Tabriz, Syed Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, who was on board with Raisi.
The crew, Esmaili said, had been in contact with him in the hours before his death. It became clear from his words that the presidential helicopter had crashed.
„I don't feel well, I don't know what happened, I don't know where I am, I'm under the trees, I don't know, I don't see anyone, I'm alone,” the imam quoted the head of the presidential administration.
The helicopter carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdolakhian and other officials crashed on May 19 in the northwestern part of the country in the Verzegan region. On the morning of May 20, Iranian Vice President Mohsen Mansouri confirmed reports that the president and his delegation had died in a helicopter crash. The delegation was returning after a visit to Azerbaijan, where Raisi and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, participated in the opening ceremony of the Giz Galasy hydroelectric complex and the commissioning of the Khudaferin hydroelectric complex on the border river Araks.