이란 대통령 에브라힘 라이시(Ebrahim Raisi )가 탄 헬리콥터 추락 지점, 생존자 발견되지 않아.
이란과 이스라엘의 갈등이 심화하고 있는 시점에서, 이란 대통령 라이시의 헬리콥터 사고 사망 원인은 무엇인가를 두고 논란이 일어날 수도 있다. 단순 교통 사고냐, 아니면 외부 공격을 받아 추락했느냐 문제다.
영국 bbc 뉴스 보도.
이란 대통령 에브라힘 라이시가 탄 헬리콥터 추락 지점, 생존자 발견되지 않아.
헬리콥터 탑승자. 이란 대통령 에브라힘 라이시, 외무부 장관 호세인 아미르-압돌라히안.
이란 현지 시각 일요일, 이란 북쪽 짙은 안개 때문에 헬리콥터가 연착륙을 하지 못하고 경착륙을 했다.
라이시 대통령은 이란과 아제르바이잔 국경 지대로부터 돌아온 이후, 이란 북서부 쪽에 있는 타브리즈 시를 향하던 중이었다.
현지 사고 현장을 대규모로 조사중이지만, 기후 조건이 좋지 않아 애를 먹고 있다.
Summary (BBC)
Iran state TV says there is "no sign of life" at the crash site of a helicopter that was carrying President Ebrahim Raisi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
Reports say the helicopter - one of three travelling in a convoy - made a "hard landing" on Sunday after it got into difficulties in heavy fog in the north of the country
Raisi was heading to the city of Tabriz, in the north west of Iran, after returning from an Iran-Azerbaijan border area, according to local media
The incident sparked a massive search operation that was hampered by bad weather conditions
Posted at 22:4322:43
Rescuers will reach helicopter 'in a few minutes' - state media
Rescuers will reach the helicopter location in "a few minutes", the head of Iran's Red Crescent Society Pirhossein Kolivand has told state media.
He said that they were approximately 2km from where the hard landing is thought to have taken place.
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Posted at 22:3122:31
BREAKING
Search teams locate wreckage site - state media
Search teams have found the crash site of the helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi, state TV says.
The head of Iran's Red Crescent society has told state TV that the situation is not "good".
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Posted at 22:2422:24
No clarity, but a familiar stage being set
Bahman Kalbasi
BBC Persian in New York
woman prays for Raisi in Tehran
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
For those of us who lived in Iran in the late 1980s, the days leading up to the official announcement of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Islamic Republic, and the images of the funeral that followed are etched into our memory.
The Islamic Republic’s media apparatus prepared the ground by asking people to pray for the leader. Loyalists responded by gathering in mosques overnight. Finally at the crack of dawn the mood in those mosques shifted from praying for his health to mourning his loss. And then came the state broadcasting announcement at 07:00.
State media reports and the tone of the current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speech in the last hours appear to be setting a similar stage - asking the public to pray, loyalists gathering at a square in Tehran to do so, and reassurances that the day-to-day function of the country’s affairs will not be impacted.
While we await clarity over what happened at the crash site, reading the tea leaves points to the regime preparing this familiar playbook.
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Posted at 22:0422:04
Iran's poor aviation safety record
Siavash Ardalan
BBC Persian senior reporter
Raisi takes off
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
President Raisi took off earlier in a Bell 212 helicopterImage caption: President Raisi took off earlier in a Bell 212 helicopter
The cause of the helicopter crash is not yet known - but Iran has a poor air transport safety record.
This is at least partly the result of decades of US sanctions, which have severely weakened its aerial fleet.
President Raisi was on board a Bell 212 helicopter, state news agencies said. The model was made in the US and could not have been sold to Iran since the 1979 revolution.
Previous ministers of defence and transport, as well as commanders of Iran’s ground and air armed forces, have died in plane or helicopter crashes.
When reformers led Iran's government, they aimed to modernise the country's fleet of aircraft by negotiating a deal with the West that would see sanctions lifted in return for limiting Iran's sensitive nuclear activities and allowing in international inspectors
However, these efforts stalled when President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions.
Reformers were subsequently opposed and mocked by hardliners, who insisted that Iran could rely on its domestic industries and foreign allies to improve aviation safety.
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Posted at 21:3821:38
Watch: Turkish drone's route in search for Raisi
Video content
Video caption: Watch: Turkey drone's live route in search for Iran's President RaisiWatch: Turkey drone's live route in search for Iran's President Raisi
Earlier we reported that a Turkish drone that joined the search for Raisi's helicopter had identified a heat source.
The Bayraktar Akinci drone's route over rugged topography in north-western Iran has been visible on flight-tracking websites.
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Posted at 21:1121:11
'No evidence of foul play at this point' - US senator Schumer
Some reaction now from the US, where a handful of lawmakers have addressed the helicopter crash in Iran.
Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said his discussions with US intelligence officials suggest "at this point there is no evidence of foul play" but he would "keep the monitoring the situation as it unfolds".
"It was very bad foggy weather in north-west Iran where the copter crashed, so it looks like an accident but it's still being fully investigated," he said at a news conference.
"Good riddance" was the reaction of Michael Waltz, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"Raisi was a murderous human rights abuser before and during his Presidency," he wrote on X.
"If Raisi is dead, the world is now a safer & better place," Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida said on X.
"If he’s gone, I truly hope the Iranian people have the chance to take their country back from murderous dictators," he added.
The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the crash.
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Posted at 20:5120:51
Raisi - hardline cleric who became president
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
Ebrahim Raisi is a hardline cleric close to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His election as president in 2021 consolidated the control of conservatives over every part of the Islamic Republic.
Born in 1960 in Mashhad, home to Iran's holiest Shia Muslim shrine, he followed in the footsteps of his father, a cleric, and started attended a seminary when he was 15.
He took part in protests against the Western-backed Shah, who was toppled in 1979, while a student and went on to become the deputy prosecutor in Tehran at just 25.
In the late 1980s, he sat on secret tribunals believed to have sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death in what humans rights group say constituted a crime against humanity.
Raisi succeeded Hassan Rouhani as president after a poll which saw many prominent moderate and reformist candidates barred and the majority of voters stay away.
He took power with Iran already facing multiple challenges but his time in office has been dominated by anti-government protests as well as the current war in Gaza.
Read the full profile here
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Posted at 20:3220:32
BREAKING
Turkish drone identifies heat source in Raisi search
heat source identified by drone
Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
A drone sent by Turkey to help in the search for President Raisi's helicopter has identified a source of heat, according to news agency Anadolu.
Footage from the Bayraktar Akinci high-altitude long-range drone released by the agency shows an aerial view of a landscape at night and a dark blotch on what appears to be a hillside.
The agency said the coordinates of the site had been shared with the Iranian authorities.
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Analysis
Posted at 19:5319:53
For Iran's conservatives, continuity is what matters
Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent
We do not know what has happened to Ebrahim Raisi, but if he has died this would have very little in the way of ramifications for Iran’s foreign or domestic policy.
President Raisi took care of the day-to-day running of Iran, but his powers were very much circumscribed.
In Iran, it is the supreme leader who sets the policy and who has the final say.
The president’s time in power has not been marked by any major new policy platforms, and so his legacy would not be seen as a consequential one.
What will be important for the country’s conservatives – who have been strengthening their grip on power across a wide range of institutions – will be to send a very clear and convincing message of continuity.
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Posted at 19:2219:22
Russia sending rescue team to help with search
Russia is sending a rescue team to Iran to help with the search for President Raisi, according to Russian state media.
RIA Novosti reports that the team includes 47 specialist rescuers, a number of all-terrain vehicles, and a helicopter.
It said the equipment was being loaded and would be flown to Iranian city of Tabriz, to which the president was travelling at the time of the accident.
“Both helicopters and rescuers are ready to carry out the most difficult tasks at high altitudes,” the agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“As soon as weather conditions, namely fog, allow the search and rescue operation to be resumed, our specialists will join the efforts.”
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Posted at 18:5218:52
False images and misleading rumours spread online
Shayan Sardarizadeh and Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring
Social media has been awash with false information following the news of an accident involving a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi.
A video of a helicopter crashing in a mountainous area, viewed 1.6m times, claims to show President Raisi's helicopter in Iran's East Azarbaijan province.
But BBC Verify has confirmed that the video dates back to July 2022, showing a border police rescue helicopter crashing in Gudauri, Georgia.
An image, viewed nearly 100,000 times, falsely claims to show wreckage of the helicopter carrying Raisi.
But the image appeared in a 2019 report about a helicopter crash in Morocco.
Fake video of the helicopter wreckage
BBCCopyright: BBC
An unfounded rumour that claims Iran's state TV has suspended its normal programming to announce Raisi's death has also been widely shared.
However, state TV has not suspended its coverage, and continues to air updates on the ongoing search and rescue efforts to locate the helicopter.
Fake rumour about state news coverage
BBCCopyright: BBC
A deleted tweet by Iran's Fars news agency, closely affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards Corps, shared an image of Raisi near a helicopter, claiming his helicopter had safely landed.
However, the image of Raisi was captured during rescue efforts after nationwide floods in July 2022, and the fate of the helicopter and those on board remains unknown.
Fake image of Raisi after the crash
BBCCopyright: BBC
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Posted at 18:2218:22
World awaits more information from Iranian authorities
Sebastian Usher
Middle East analyst
The difficulty with reporting on an incident like this in Iran is that we are reliant on information being released by a number of semi-official news agencies.
Those agencies don’t always speak with exactly the same voice. You will see officials quoted, but quite often those officials will be at odds in what they say.
What we haven’t had, beyond some general reassurances from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, is a clear statement from the authorities of what they know in black and white.
I think many regional and world leaders will be watching the same reports that we’re watching from those agencies and trying to get some indication of what’s happening.
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Posted at 17:5217:52
Search area narrowing but helicopter not yet located - state media
Iranian state news agency IRNA reports that although the site of the presumed crash has not yet been found, the search area is narrowing and now has a 2km radius.
Iranian TV is showing footage of rescuers walking up steep slopes in driving rain and darkness.
Meanwhile Hossein Salami, the commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has travelled to the crash area to investigate and speed up rescue operations, state news agency IRIB reports.
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Posted at 17:2317:23
In pictures: Vigils for Raisi held in Tehran
As the search to locate President Raisi continues, Iranians have gathered for vigils on the streets of the capital, Tehran.
Pictures from Vali-Asr square in the centre of the city show people kneeling in prayer. Here's a look at some of the latest images:
Groups of men seen kneeling in prayer for President Ebrahim Raisi on the streets of Tehran, Iran
EPACopyright: EPA
Men seen sat on the floor, some holding their heads, in a street in Tehran, Iran
EPACopyright: EPA
A woman holding her hands up in prayer for President Ebrahim Raisi on the streets of Tehran, Iran
EPACopyright: EPA
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Analysis
Posted at 16:5416:54
Raisi seen by some as Khamenei's potential successor
Jiyar Gol
BBC Persian
In the eyes of many Iranians, Ebrahim Raisi was placed in his position by disqualifying major contenders for the Presidency in 2021. He was largely carrying out the Supreme Leader's wishes. There has been competition among hardliners in Iran to have one of their own succeed the Supreme Leader.
So far, Raisi has been one of the most influential among conservatives.
This is why rumours about the incident have been spreading widely on social media among Iranians. Many are questioning how it is that the other two helicopters carrying ministers returned safely, but not the president's.
Most Iranians don't take Raisi seriously, which is why during the 2022 protests, we rarely heard any slogans against him. Instead, the supreme leader was the primary target.
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