It has been revealed that there were no signs of trouble from the pilot of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage before the crash, as he made radio contact with the pilots of two other helicopters just 90 seconds before going down. There were also no signs of external attacks such as gunfire, leading investigators to believe that mechanical failure caused the crash.
According to Xinhua News Agency on the 23rd (local time), the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces announced in the investigation committee’s first investigation report that no suspicious traces, such as bullets, were found in and on the helicopter. The General Staff also stated that the helicopter was following its scheduled route without deviation from the route before the crash. Furthermore, they explained that the pilot of the helicopter communicated by radio with the pilots of the other two helicopters about 90 seconds before the crash, but there was nothing significant in their conversation.
The General Staff also revealed that the helicopter seemed to have been engulfed in flames immediately after the crash. They added that the search for the wreckage continued throughout the night due to fog and low temperatures, and the wreckage was finally located through a drone at around 5 AM on the 20th. After attending a dam completion ceremony in the Varzaqan region of East Azerbaijan Province on the 19th, Raisi and other passengers onboard were killed as the helicopter they boarded crashed in a mountainous area.