The Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed on May 19th in a helicopter crash. It is still not perfectly clear why it crashed into the mountainside. Multiple people were killed in the crash including President Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other Iranian Officials. They crashed in a helicopter similar to the Bell-212. There are many suspected ideas for why it crashed. Some think that it was due to foggy conditions and being in a mountainous area, helicopters are just more dangerous, and also the helicopter was an old helicopter, which also due to US Sanctions they couldn’t get spare parts for the helicopter.

Foggy conditions are a very likely cause of the crash. Many people who have died in helicopter crashes have been due to the pilot not being able to see clearly and sometimes faulty machinery. For example, Kobe Bryant’s fatal crash was due to the pilot being unable to see and misunderstood his location. There had been many reports of foggy conditions on their flight path, but they went regardless.

Helicopters are generally more dangerous than planes. This is because with planes you have autopilot and things like that where if they aren’t paying attention the plane can fly on its own. Whereas on helicopters pilots have to stay completely focused if they don’t want to die.

His helicopter was very old and could’ve malfunctioned. He used a helicopter similar to the Bell-212 “Huey”; it’s an old Vietnam helicopter. Additionally, due to sanctions placed by the US, they struggle to get spare parts for it, so if there were old malfunctioning parts in it, it could’ve compromised its ability to fly properly.