DUBAI — Iranian state television said Monday there is “no sign of life” at the crash site of a helicopter that was carrying President Ebrahim Raisi and others.The site was across a steep valley, and rescuers had yet to reach it, state media reported.As the sun rose Monday, rescuers saw the helicopter from a distance of about 1.25 miles, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media. He did not elaborate. The officials at that point had been missing for more than 12 hours.The helicopter crashed Sunday and was carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollhian and others. Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the future of the country as the Israel-Hamas war inflames the wider Middle East.Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. With him were Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Early Monday morning, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be wreckage of [the] helicopter.” The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 12 miles south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border, on the side of a steep mountain.Footage released by IRNA early Monday showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range. Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said, “There it is, we found it.”Hard-liners urged the public to pray. State TV aired images of hundreds of the faithful, some with their hands outstretched in supplication, praying at Imam Reza Shrine in the city of Mashhad, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites, as well as in Qom and other locations across the country. State television’s main channel aired the prayers nonstop.In Tehran, a group of men kneeling on the side of a street, some visibly weeping, clasped strands of prayer beads and watched a video of Raisi praying.“If anything happens to him, we’ll be heartbroken,” said one, Mehdi Seyedi. “May the prayers work, and may he return to the arms of the nation safe and sound.”In comments aired on state TV, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said: “The esteemed president and company were on their way back aboard some helicopters, and one of the helicopters was forced to make a hard landing due to the bad weather and fog. Various rescue teams are on their way to the region, but because of the poor weather and fogginess, it might take time for them to reach the helicopter.”IRNA called the area a “forest”; the region is known to be mountainous as well. State TV aired images of SUVs racing through a wooded area and said they were being hampered by heavy rain and wind.A rescue helicopter tried to reach the area but couldn’t land due to the heavy mist, emergency services spokesman Babak Yektaparast told IRNA.Long after the sun set, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi acknowledged that “we are experiencing difficult and complicated conditions” in the search.“It is the right of the people and the media to be aware of the latest news about the president’s helicopter accident, but considering the coordinates of the incident site and the weather conditions, there is ‘no’ new news whatsoever until now,” he wrote on the social platform X. “In these moments, patience, prayer and trust in relief groups are the way forward.”Khamenei also urged the public to pray.“We hope that God the Almighty returns the dear president and his colleagues in full health to the arms of the nation,” Khamenei said, drawing an “amen” from the worshipers he was addressing.Raisi, 63, a hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, is viewed as a protege of Khamenei. Some analysts have suggested he could replace the 85-year-old leader after Khamenei’s death or resignation.Raisi had been on the border with Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The dam is the third the two nations have built on the Aras River. The visit came despite chilly relations between the nations over a gun attack on Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran in 2023 and Azerbaijan’s diplomatic relations with Israel, which Iran’s Shiite theocracy views as its main enemy in the region.Iran flies a variety of helicopters within the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet largely dates to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. IRNA published images it described as Raisi taking off in what resembled a Bell 412 helicopter, with a blue-and-white paint scheme previously seen in published photographs.Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. Raisi is sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.Under Raisi, Iran enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launching the drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran for years has seen mass protests. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. The months-long security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw more than 22,000 detained.In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.President Biden was briefed by aides on the Iran crash, but administration officials have not learned much more than what is being reported publicly by Iran state media, said a senior administration official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Gambrell writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
