Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi can be seen calmly sitting inside his helicopter a short time before it went down in a remote mountainous region Sunday afternoon, haunting images released by Iranian state media show.
One image shows Raisi pensively staring forward in his seat as an unidentified state official seated across from him stares out the window of the ill-fated chopper.
No official announcement has been made about the fate of the aircraft’s occupants even hours after news of the crash was announced by Iranian state TV.
Those traveling with Raisi included Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Friday prayer Imam Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Al-Hashem and other high-ranking state officials.
Night has fallen since the crash near Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, hampering the efforts of dozens of search teams who rallied to aid in the rescue effort, trudging ahead on foot over treacherous terrain.
The severity of the crash is not yet clear, and conflicting reports have emerged since state media announced Raisi’s helicopter had experienced a “hard landing” around 375 miles northwest of Iran’s capital Tehran.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that “diplomatic sources in the West estimate that Raisi did not survive the accident,” a claim that could not be independently verified by The Post.
Meanwhile, Iranian Vice President for Executive Affairs Mohsen Mansouri told the semi-official FARS news agency that officials have been in contact with two people who were on the same helicopter as Raisi and that the crash was “not severe.”
There has been no additional evidence to support Mansouri’s claim.
