Accident? Iranian President and Foreign Minister killed in Helicopter Crash

Easy to sabotage in those condition, just give the pilot false atmospheric pressure and you automatically falsify the altimeter giving a false reading of your real altitude is one way to do it and as you know electronic can be messed up from a distance so it may have been modified in flight. It sure look suspicious as the other 2 helicopters didn't have problem, it really look as a targeted assassination for me or really coincidental fail of flight instrument.
I would not at all be surprised if that was the case. Surely the Iranians are aware of all the above, yet they still put their president and FM in the situation.
 
The conflict between West and Iran has some victims on both sides. The 'belief' in Islam that came out as a counter force to West's 'colonial' mindset has its own victims. So when this type of incidents (big player in the situation dies) happen, it is normal for some people to celebrate. How much is disproportionately hyped (through media and NGO's) and how much is real is hard to say.

Here is some interesting article on the reaction of Iranian public. The Author of the following article seems to carry Western narration. Atleast this gives indication of direction Western media narration tries to peddle w.r.t this incident with obvious purpose of ignoring the elephant in the room - Israel. Probably we can imagine the labels Pro-Palestine college students get in this process.


Why President Raisi's death has sparked off fireworks, celebrations in Iran​

People in Iran are celebrating the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi with fireworks, memes and jokes. But why this outburst of joy and celebration over the death of a national leader? And is the celebration just about Raisi's death or is it indicative of a fightback by Iranians long repressed by a theocratic state?

"I think this is the only crash in history where everyone is worried if someone survived," Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad wrote on X, after reports of that a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi crashed. "Happy World Helicopter Day!" the Iranian activist wrote.

While hundreds gathered in the main squares of Tehran and Mashhad to pray for the safety of President Ebrahim Raisi following reports of the helicopter crash, scores of videos and reports emerged showing Iranians celebrating the news. Many Iranians and Iranian expatriates on social media were also seen joking and sharing memes of the crash.

There were several videos of celebratory fireworks lighting up the night sky in Iran.

Raisi wasn't just the President of Iran, he was the person touted to succeed Ali Khamenei as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But why this outburst of joy and celebration over the death of a national leader? And is the celebration just about Raisi or is it emblematic of a fightback by people repressed by a theocratic state?

While many were glued to TV screens and smartphones for updates on the wellbeing of the Iranian President, many in Iran and abroad were seen rejoicing at the possibility of the death of 63-year-old Raisi, who is often referred to as the "Butcher of Tehran".

Raisi was also a symbol of Iran, a moderate and modern Shia Muslim country, which had taken an extreme conservative turn after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

EBRAHIM RAISI AND THE MONIKER 'BUTCHER OF TEHRAN'​

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were among nine people who were confirmed dead on Sunday after their chopper crashed in Iran's mountainous northwestern region on Saturday.

The reports of the helicopter crash involving President Ebrahim Raisi, "the butcher of Tehran", triggered widespread celebrations across the Shia nation, who had been in office since August 2021 with an iron-fist.

Known for his proximity to the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Raisi, a hardliner, was in line to be Iran's next Supreme Leader.

A theocratic hardliner, Raisi was known to be responsible for crushing dissent and free speech in Iran, and enforcing the harsh "hijab and chastity law" to restrict women's attire. The law gave unlimited powers to the morality police in Iran.

The enforcement of strict Islamic laws, like the "hijab and chastity law", triggered nationwide protests against the theocratic regime after the custodial death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Amini was arrested by the morality police for not wearing a hijab.

The protests last year marked one of the most significant challenges faced by the Iranian regime since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

As a student, Raisi took part in protests against the liberal Shah of Iran, who was overthrown in the 1979 revolution.


Raisi joined the judiciary when he was just 25 and soon became the deputy prosecutor of Tehran. He was personally groomed by Ayatollah Khamenei, who is Iran's Supreme Leader.

Raisi's role in Iran's 1988 mass execution of political prisoners, as the deputy prosecutor in Tehran, earned him the moniker, "The Butcher of Tehran".

He was one of the four members of the 'death committee' formed in 1988 to try political prisoners. The 'death committee' conducted summary trials and executed thousands of political dissidents.

Iranian authorities secretly kidnapped and "extrajudicially executed" more than 5,000 people between July and September 1988, according to Amnesty International.

Raisi, a hardline cleric groomed by Khamenei, became the President of Iran in 2021.
...

IRANIANS REJOICED OVER RAISI CHOPPER CRASH​

Social media were flooded with video footage of celebratory fireworks in the Iranian skies, reported The Iran International.

"Let's celebrate the good news of Ebrahim Raisi's chopper crash," a person lighting up a sparkler was heard saying in a now viral video.
...
The vengeful Iranian regime has forced hundreds of thousands of Iranians to flee the country. So, protests were seen outside Iran too.

Several people outside London's Iranian Embassy were seen dancing to the news of the helicopter crash.

The daughters of anti-regime Minoo Majidi, a 62-year-old woman who was shot by the Iranian security forces in 2022, were seen having a drink and toasting to the news.

"I am so happy to see smiles on your faces," wrote Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad on X.
...
The celebrations in Iran that went through the night have, however, prompted the Iranian government to react. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been deployed at several places in Iran to "prevent an uprising", reported The Iran International, a portal of exiled Iranians.
 
Regardless of if there was funny business with the Israelis, taking a helicopter over the mountains in dense fog with your president and foreign minister in tow is very poor decision making. No doubt the Iranians don't have the best aviation tech due to US sanctions. [..]

What a colossal strategic error.
Yep, that was my thought as well. Five significant, some highly important, members of the government taken out in one go.
 
And then there is this statement that made me think about what Paulides said often happened to the rescue crews when they tried to find missing people. There was a sudden change of weather that made the search extremely hard. In this case this "sudden" change of weather could facilitate mistakes and be the cause of the accident. Or maybe it was also right after whatever event that caused the crash.

1.jpg
 
Last edited:
What's striking to me is that the media here in Holland seem to be emphasizing that he was some kind of horrific dictator and that some prominent Dutch politicians are condemning the condolences made by Charles Michel.
Apart from what @seek10 wrote, perhaps there was inspiration from The Times of Israel:
‘We won’t shed a tear’: Israeli MKs react coldly to Raisi’s death, as government mum
Far-right MK: Iran leader who threatened Israel with annihilation now ‘a grain of dust in history’; TV station sorry after falling for joke that pilot was Mossad agent ‘Eli Kopter’
By TOI STAFF Today, 1:58 pm
Presidency/AFP)
As news broke of the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi Monday, Israeli politicians reacted with indifference, while an unnamed official told the media Jerusalem was not involved in the helicopter crash that killed him.

“It wasn’t us,” the Israeli official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.

There was no immediate official Israeli government reaction to his death.

[...]

Far-right coalition MK Avi Maoz of the ultraconservative Noam party, a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, boasted in a statement: “Only less than a month ago, he threatened that ‘if Israel attacks, nothing will be left of it,’ and now he is a grain of dust in history.”

[...]

Rabbi David Chai Hacohen, the prominent head of a religious Zionist yeshiva in Bat Yam, told his students to omit the Tachanun prayer on Monday. Tachanun is a solemn prayer recited by observant Jews on weekdays but which is skipped on happy days and Jewish festivals.

“The president was a very special hater of Israel and the greatest among the Iranians,” he said, calling his death “good news for the people of Israel,” in comments reported by the Israel National News site.

According to the report, his yeshiva organized celebratory prayers and dancing for Monday.


Making light of Raisi’s death, a satirical X page spoofing the Mossad spy agency posted a photo implying a Mossad agent named “Eli Kopter” had piloted the chopper.

“Raisi: are you sure this helicopter is safe? Pilot Eli Kopter: absolutely,” the post read, just one of many Israeli posts online following Raisi’s accident that invoked the famous pun.
Reporter Daniel Haïk, of the French-language edition of Israeli satellite news network i24news, appeared to fall for the “Eli Kopter” online joke, reporting it as a rumor and citing a post on an Arabic-language telegram group claiming that the pilot had worked for the Mossad. While not stating it as fact, he said: “Is it true or false, we don’t know.”

After drawing mockery online, the station later apologized and vowed “to do everything possible so that mistakes of this type do not happen again.”

[...]
Iran has been under sanctions from US and allies for a long time. Any hope for change and chaos in the country is to their advantage.
 
And then there is this statement that made me think about what Paulides said often happened to the rescue crews when they tried to find missing people. There was a sudden change of weather that made the search extremely hard. In this case this "sudden" change of weather could facilitate mistakes and be the cause of the accident. Or maybe it was also after whatever event that caused the crash.
View attachment 96134
Some are in that direction. Now, we have been observing that there had been sudden severe weather due climate change but 2/3 helicopters arriving safely and eliminating data is suspicious in itself.

t=miSpeclblYGOCAaCicGu0A&s=19
 
This map allows to see previous days. Maybe you can find the location and the exact time of the crash and see what weather was at this location. From what I was able to gather, the crash happened in the morning of 19th of May. This info was from the Russian TG news channel, so it's possible that the morning time as it was in Iran.

 
This map allows to see previous days. Maybe you can find the location and the exact time of the crash and see what weather was at this location. From what I was able to gather, the crash happened in the morning of 19th of May. This info was from the Russian TG news channel, so it's possible that the morning time as it was in Iran.

Link
Mr. Raisi, 63, was traveling from Iran's border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate a joint dam project. The helicopter, carrying Mr. Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, state media reported, crashed near the city of Varzaghan around 1 p.m. local time, in bad weather and thick fog
Varzaghan_19May_1030AM_UTC.JPG

There is 2:30 difference between UTC( image time zone) and Varzaghan ( incident location 1PM) and that makes 10:30 PM UTC in the above graph. Weather wise is it is light rain ( though rain increased later). All other parameters ( in the above site) seems to somewhat normal. There was moderate rain pocket came north of the location after 6 to 7 hours of the incident.
 
There could be a lot of things going on. I saw that Iran actually raided the embassy of India because an Indian national was a suspect, so Iran definitely suspects something. I cannot imagine India actually being involved though - unless they or one of their rogue operatives got paid an insane amount of money by Mossad so they would have plausible deniability.

It is possible that whoever was responsible for assessing the weather and giving that information to the pilots was paid to deliberately give them bad information - especially if the origen was on foreign territory and the guy responsible could slip away. The same guy could have also sabotaged the altimeter or anythign else in the plane to make it look like an accident caused by the weather if he had access to the planes. Maybe even screw with a the fuel gauge and siphon away fuel. Tons of possibilities for plausible deniability.

Also it is possible, in a great irony, that they actually deliberately flew in bad weather because they were afraid of Israeli sabotage. I mean why not a plane? Maybe they thought it was too easy a target to stinger missiles is the only reason I can think of; perhaps helicopters can only be hit if you have someone in the area at that altitude and they took an unexpected flight path deliberately through the worst terrain and weather possible as Israel would not expect it. Maybe they thought if they had a course low to the ground over mountains in bad weather it would be harder to shoot the plane down and they trusted their pilots to navigate the terrain (not smart). But if this was the rationale Iran might consider Israel an INDIRECT cause since they were forced to take such measures because the Israelis are such evil snakes.

If I were the Iranian President I would be staying close to home given events of the last few months. That was the most stupid decision of all. Israel has shown it has no morals and will do anything, and he had to know he would be a target. I mean the president of Slovakia was just taken down days ago! The height of arrogance. Maybe he thought Allah would protect him LMAO :) Good luck with that! Not helping the poor people of Gaza.

Also interesting is this story: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/iran-a...s-for-spreading-satanism-and-nudity-1.6891498. Basically Iran arrested a bunch of Satanists. So maybe there was a motivation for another group, which might have even included Mossad officials or assets given how we know how intelligence agencies are into this crap.
 
Apart from what @seek10 wrote, perhaps there was inspiration from The Times of Israel:

Iran has been under sanctions from US and allies for a long time. Any hope for change and chaos in the country is to their advantage.
To be completely fair Iran is far from a free country. I am guessing the vast majority of the population would love to be out from under the thumbs of the Ayatollahs. And while the citizens can technically elect a president, we all know the Ayatollah has the final authority in that nation. I think it is horrific to jail people because of their religious beliefs. So I do not think the criticism is totally unwarranted. It is possible to say that Iran and Israel BOTH have repressive regimes but Israel has a foreign and domestic policy that is much, much worse (i.e. ethnic cleansing and attacking its neighbors without contrition). And in any war between Iran and Israel, Iran would have the more justifiable position. Hell, right now nearly every government is dictatorial because the leaders are all puppets.

That being said, Iran is much more liberal today than in the 1980s. For example, Saudi Arabia is much more draconian on those who do not have the right religious beliefs. They actually have beheaded Shiite MUSLIM LEADERS because they do not approve of that sect. Saudi Arabi literally assasinated a US citizen in an embassy in Turkey and also was involved in the 9/11 attacks! If these Europeans have a problem with Iran, then they to be consistent should be calling for the sanction of all Saudi oil and trade relations because they are much, much worse!!! Trump literally would bad mouth Iran, but he and his son in-law at the same time would have nice cozy meeting with the Saudis, selling then prime US weaponry. Total and completely hypocrisy.
 
There could be a lot of things going on. I saw that Iran actually raided the embassy of India because an Indian national was a suspect, so Iran definitely suspects something. I cannot imagine India actually being involved though - unless they or one of their rogue operatives got paid an insane amount of money by Mossad so they would have plausible deniability.
It looks they are recirculating the 2105 picture to claim India is involved.
Again That is Mossad. No body knows who plays which part in the entire operation and who uses for what purpose.
 
Whatever happened, the Iranians hit us with some propaganda. "Hard landing" 😤
There could be multiple reasons for that and not necessarily malevolent i.e.
i. for the shock of the incident to not be just passed down to the population in its raw state for fear of impulsive retaliations against whoever people declare as the perpetrators. Let's not forget how volatile things in the region and every player is 'heavily' armed.
ii. maybe there was still hope, however small, that they may be rescued; and many more potential benevolent crisis containment reasons..

Damage control can be used for positive aims as well. An incident of that scale needs a measured and cool headed propagation of info.
 
There could be multiple reasons for that and not necessarily malevolent i.e.
i. for the shock of the incident to not be just passed down to the population in its raw state for fear of impulsive retaliations against whoever people declare as the perpetrators. Let's not forget how volatile things in the region and every player is 'heavily' armed.
ii. maybe there was still hope, however small, that they may be rescued; and many more potential benevolent crisis containment reasons..

Damage control can be used for positive aims as well. An incident of that scale needs a measured and cool headed propagation of info.
One can always make excuses for propaganda. The justification is always that it's for the greater good. Doesn't change the fact it's propaganda though!

I don't mean to be black & white but propaganda is propaganda the same way a lie is a lie.

IMO, it was bad propaganda too as clearly the landing wasn't "hard" (I mean it was but it wasn't, it was a bloody crash). Just say, "We lost contact with the helicopter and we have initiated a search for it based on its last known position. We will let you have more information when we find it out. "
 
Back
Top Bottom