By: (BBC)
President Ebrahim Raisi and seven other people were killed on Sunday when the helicopter they were travelling in came down near the border with Azerbaijan, Iranian authorities have confirmed.
This is what we know so far about the crash:
There were seven people accompanying the president who also died in the crash, according to the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami.
They included Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, as well as the governor of East Azerbaijan province, Malek Rahmati, and Tabriz’s Friday prayer leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, a senior Shia cleric who was also Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s official representative in East Azerbaijan.
Gen Salami identified the others as IRGC Brig-Gen Mohammad Mehdi Mousavi, the head of the president’s security team, pilots Col Mohsen Daryanush and Col Seyyed Taher Mostafavi, and technician Maj Behrouz Qadimi.
The incident occurred at around 13:30 local time (10:00 GMT) in a remote, mountainous area about 58km (36 miles) south of the Qiz-Qalasi Dam and 2km south-west of the village of Uzi, according to Iranian officials and photographs published by state media.
But it was not until after 16:00 local time (12:45 GMT) that Iranian state TV reported that the helicopter carrying the president had experienced what it called a “hard landing” while flying to Tabriz in heavy fog and rain.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi later confirmed that the president’s delegation had been travelling in a convoy of three helicopters and that his aircraft was “forced to make a hard landing due to bad weather conditions and fog in the area”.
He said multiple rescue teams were heading to the area but that fog, snow and rain and the local terrain were hampering the search operation.
As for the other two helicopters that were flying alongside the president’s helicopter, they had initiated a search for 15 to 20 minutes after communication was lost. They were then forced to make emergency landings, an official told state TV as the operation continued into the night.
Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohsen Mansouri also said contacts had been made with two people on the president’s helicopter – a flight crew member and one other individual.
“This indicates that the severity of the incident was not very high, as two of the individuals inside the helicopter managed to communicate with our team multiple times,” he added, without providing further details.
However, any hopes that Raisi and his entourage had survived were dashed after daybreak on Monday.
Who has succeeded Raisi as president?
Ayatollah Khamenei confirmed that Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber had been appointed acting president, in line with Article 131 of Iran’s constitution.
The constitution states that the acting president will then jointly with the heads of parliament and the judiciary oversee an election for a new president within a maximum of 50 days.
Iran’s veteran nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister, Ali Baqeri Kani, was also named as the acting foreign minister, a government spokesman said.
He can serve in the post for a maximum of three months before a permanent replacement must be nominated and approved by parliament.
