Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian were confirmed dead on Monday after their helicopter crashed in a mountainous and forested area in the country’s East Azerbaijan province amid dense fog. Six other people in the helicopter, including crew members, were also killed.
The United States-manufactured, two-blade Bell 212 that Raisi was travelling in is believed to have been decades old. Foreign sanctions on Iran dating back to the 1979 revolution, and subsequently over its nuclear programme and its backing of the so-called “axis of resistance”, have made it difficult for the country to obtain aircraft parts or new aircraft.
