Helicopter carrying Iran's president crash lands

A helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi suffered "a hard landing" in Iran's East Azerbaijan province on Sunday, state media reported. Government and provincial officials say search and rescue operations are ongoing, but difficult weather conditions are obstructing progress.

The incident happened in the vicinity of Jolfa as the president was returning from a visit to neighbouring Azerbaijan, state news agency Irna reported. Raisi and his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, had on Saturday inaugurated the Qiz Qalasi dam, which the two countries built together.

Raisi was travelling with a delegation of high-ranking officials including Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Also on board were the governor of East Azerbaijan, Malek Rahmati, and Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, the representative to the province of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The president's convoy was made up of three helicopters, but only two made it back safely, Irna said.

Raisi was due to arrive in Tabriz on Sunday to attend the inauguration of an upgrade project at a 110,000 b/d refinery in the city.

Iran's interior minister Ahmad Vahidi said the president's helicopter was forced to make "a hard landing" as a result of bad weather conditions.

Television reports from state media located in the vicinity showed that fog was impacting visibility in the region. One Irna reporter said visibility in the area had fallen to less than 10m.

Vahidi said the bad weather conditions and difficult terrain had "complicated" efforts by search and rescue teams to reach the site of the incident, but he said he "hoped" the teams would make it to the location "soon."

Government spokesman Ali Bahadori-Jahromi said 20 rescue teams had been dispatched so far and that Iran's first vice-president, Mohammad Mokhber, had left for Tabriz along with several other members of government.

With several hours having passed since news of the crash landing emerged, state media is calling on Iranians to pray for Raisi and his delegation. Irna aired footage of scores of people praying for the president at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad.

There is no official confirmation about the wellbeing of the president or any of the other officials on board the helicopter. Should anything have happened to Raisi, Iran's constitution dictates that the first vice-president would assume the president's powers and functions, with the approval of the supreme leader.

By Nader Itayim