Rescue teams are searching for Ebrahim Raisi, the President of Iran, after a helicopter carrying him suffered a “hard landing” in East Azerbaijan, the country’s state-owned television has reported.
The search and rescue team say their operations are hindered by bad weather.
The state media said the crash occurred on Sunday near Jolfa in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province.
The Iranian leader was returning from a visit to neighbouring country where he had travelled to launch a dam along with Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaïdjan’s président when the incident happened.
Two other helicopters in the Iranian president’s convoy, made it back safely, the state-owned media reported.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the country’s foreigninister; Malek Rahmati, East Azerbaijan governor and Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the representative of the Iranian supreme leader to the province, were in the same helicopter as Raisi, state media reported.
Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and Housing and Transportation Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash were in the other helicopters that made it back safely.
People who were with the president inside the helicopter managed to make an emergency call, according to the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency.
Tasnim reported that the call increased hopes that the incident can be concluded “without fatalities”.
