Iran announced that it will form a ‘special commission’ to investigate the helicopter accident on this Sunday in which Iran’s president, foreign minister, and other officials died.
Less than 24 hours after Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and several other officials were announced dead in a helicopter crash that happened Sunday in northwest of Iran, Tehran said it will form a ‘special commission’ to probe the tragic incident
After 16 hours of thorough search operations throughout Sunday and early Monday, the Iranian Red Cresent Society (IRCS) finally came upon the wreckage of the helicopter crash using drone technology and found the dead bodies at the site.
The order was given by the Iranian Army’s Chief of Staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri Monday, saying that he has “commissioned a high-ranking delegation to investigate the dimensions and causes of the President’s helicopter crash,” according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.
The investigation will be headed by General Ali Abdulahi, Deputy Coordinator of the Armed Forces General Staff, ISNA further noted.
What really happened to the helicopter?!
Despite rumors and speculations surrounding the incident and why it happened, Bagheri asserted that until the work of the special commission is completely done and its final report is delivered, everything is just speculation.
Immediately after the president and his entourage on board were announced dead, several news media outside Iran pointed the finger of accusation towards Israel, claiming that Tel Aviv might have been involved in the tragedy. However, an Israeli official told Reuters on Monday that Israel was not involved in the helicopter crash; “It wasn’t us,” said the official, who requested anonymity.
Inside Iran, former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif said in a phone interview with state media earlier on Monday that he holds the US responsible for the crash, blaming Washington’s sanctions on Tehran’s aviation program as one cause of the tragedy. “One of the causes of this tragic event is the United States, which sanctioned the sale of the aviation industry to Iran,” Zarif said, adding that “US sanctions prevent Iran from maintaining adequate aviation facilities, and this crash will be recorded in the blacklist of American crimes against the Iranian nation.”
Zarif was probably right because US sanctions against Iran prevent the country from purchasing spare parts to maintain its fleet of civilian aircraft, most of which are over two decades old. However, one should not ignore the extremely bad weather condition in northwest of Iran on Sunday when the accident happened.
As videos and images of the accident scene showed, there was a thick fog around in the area, which as Iranian officials said, made aerial search for the helicopter impossible. Nonetheless, it seems that the best option for knowing what really happened that day is to wait for the report of the special commission, which Bagheri didn’t specify when it will be released.
