Iran probe finds Raisi helicopter crash caused by weather

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TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran’s final investigation into the May helicopter crash that killed president Ebrahim Raisi has found it was caused by bad weather, the body investigating the case said on Sunday.

The helicopter carrying 63-year-old Raisi and his entourage came down on a fog-shrouded mountainside in northern Iran, killing the president and seven others, and triggering snap elections.

Rescue team members work at the scene of a crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran. PHOTO: AP19

The main cause of the helicopter crash was the “complex climatic and atmospheric conditions of the region in the spring”, the special board investigating the dimensions and causes of the helicopter accident said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

The report added that “the sudden emergence of a thick mass of dense and rising fog” caused the helicopter’s collision into the mountain.

Iran’s army in May similarly said it had found no evidence of criminal activity in the crash that also killed Raisi’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.