This is a list of possible causes of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash

TEHERAN – When President Iran Ebrahim Raisi boarded the helicopter carrying him, the foreign minister and six other people, thick clouds had begun to form around the mountain peaks along the Azerbaijan-Iran border. Despite the worsening weather, the helicopter took off to travel about 145 kilometers southwest to a new oil pipeline near Tabriz.

Within an hour, the Bell 212 helicopter had crashed on a cloud-covered mountainside.

Although the cause of the May 19 plane crash remains unknown, the sudden death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s hardline protégé lays bare the contradictions and challenges facing the country’s Shiite theocracy.

Iranian military investigators probing the crash have previously faced international criticism for their report on soldiers shooting down a Ukrainian airliner in 2020.

Desperate rescue efforts in the hours after the helicopter crash led Tehran to even ask the United States for help, just weeks after launching an unprecedented attack on Israel and its uranium enrichment approaching weapons levels. Even the type of helicopter that crashed has links to Iran’s history, both before and after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

This is a list of possible causes of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash

1. Iran Has a Culture of Duality

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“Iran is a culture of duality,” said Farzin Nadimi, a senior researcher at the Washington Institute for Near-East Policy who studies the Iranian military, as reported by AP. “In some aspects, they look very good and well managed, well managed and very capable. … On many levels, this is still lacking.”

Iranian military investigators have issued two statements regarding the crash, largely ruling out the possibilities rather than providing a suspected cause. They dismissed the possibility of an “explosion caused by sabotage” or a “cyberattack” targeting the Bell 212, a twin-bladed, twin-engine helicopter better known as the Huey because of its use by the US military in Vietnam. War.

“Recorded conversations between the flight crew showed that the last contact with the pilots up to the time of the incident and when they stopped responding lasted 69 seconds,” investigators said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. “There were no emergency declarations recorded during that time.”

2. The Power of Conspiracy

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In conspiratorial Iran, some officials still insist that foul play could have caused the crash. However, several other officials began to wonder why the helicopter took off from the location of the new Giz Galasi Dam even though the weather had started to improve.

Mostafa Mirsalim, a member of the country’s Expediency Council, wrote on social platform X that he had asked prosecutors to “address the mistakes that led to the disappearance of the president and his delegation,” without elaborating.

3. Raisi Helicopter Routes Do Not Follow Standards

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