Was warned before the fatal crash - now blames the US

 

Iran

Warned the regime before a fatal crash - accuses the US

John Edgar

Updated 00.31 | Published 00.30

The helicopter was flying in fog without transponders on.

The regime was warned in a secret document before the accident.

The country's former foreign minister calls the crash "another American crime against Iran".


The helicopter, a Bell 212, had nine people on board when it crashed in bad weather into a mountain in northern Iran.

The rescue team searched for hours in the rain without finding the wreckage.

Only when the fog lifted on Monday morning was a Turkish reconnaissance drone able to find the wreckage and the charred bodies on the mountainside.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in the crash. Photo: AP

All nine dead

President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian died in the crash.

The helicopter "hit the mountain and broke up on impact," Iranian state media said. All on board probably died immediately.

It emerged on Monday that no signal was sent from the accident helicopter, which was flying the political leaders back after inaugurating a dam project near the border with Azerbaijan, before the crash.

The Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu stated this at a press conference, writes The Guardian.

The crashed helicopter. Photo: Azin Haghighi / TT

Warned the regime

After hearing about the crash on Sunday, Turkish authorities searched for a signal from the helicopter's transponder.

- But unfortunately we think that the transponder system was either turned off or the helicopter did not have one, says the Turkish minister.

After the announcement of the fatal crash, it has now emerged that the regime was warned in a secret document about its helicopter fleet, The Guardian states.

There was concern that maintenance of the aging fleet was lagging due to a lack of spare parts.

It was asked to buy two new Russian helicopters to transport the top management.

Here, the president took off in a helicopter at the Iranian border on Sunday. Photo: Ali Hamed Haghdoust / AP

"American Crime"

Mohammad Javad Zarif, former foreign minister and UN ambassador to Iran, now accused the US of indirectly causing the president's death through the trade sanctions against the country.

"Another point on the black list of American crimes against Iran," he states.

The US State Department hit back at the accusations in the evening.

"Ultimately, it is the Iranian government that is responsible for the decision to fly a 45-year-old helicopter in what has been described as poor weather conditions, no one else," spokesman Matthew Miller said, according to The New York Times.

The Bell 212 model was developed in the 1960s for the Canadian military, according to Reuters.

Last night, no Iranian accusations of sabotage had been made against the country's enemies, then primarily the United States and Israel.

 

Mohammad Javad Zarif, former foreign minister, accuses the US. Photo: Khalid Mohammed / AP

"Technical issue"

Iranian media have been sparing with details and speculation about what caused the crash.

The state news agency IRNA has only stated in its English-language articles about the crash that "the results of the accident commission's investigation will be announced when it is complete".

But in a short article for a slide show about the president, the news agency writes that the helicopter crashed due to "a technical error".

- We have no information about the cause of the accident at the moment. I know the Iranians are investigating and we'll see what they come up with, says US Defense Secretary Lloyd J Austin.