'Seun Ibukun-Oni, Abuja
DAILY COURIER - Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on board the helicopter that suffered a “hard landing” in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, says Iranian state media.
Adverse weather conditions, including heavy fog, are hampering rescue efforts and the helicopter is still missing.
The office of the Tehran prosecutor says in a short statement that “some media people” are generating false news about the missing helicopter online.
“The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office has entered this issue in the past few hours and has issued warnings to a number of people who had disturbed the public’s ease of mind,” it says.
Pakistani PM says ‘waiting with great anxiety for good news’
Contradictory reports on national security council convening
Some state-linked media in Iran earlier reported that the country’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) had convened in the presence of the supreme leader.
But within minutes, unnamed sources were quoted by other state-linked media as saying no such meeting had taken place and that the “rumours” circulating were incorrect.
‘Uncertainty’ in Iran spreading
Everyone in Iran is anxiously waiting to hear about what has happened to Raisi and others in the crash, analyst Abas Aslani says.
“Nobody knows what exactly has happened and how the president and other local officials are doing, because the situation is quite complicated,” he told Al Jazeera.
“As time goes on, hopes are decreasing because the conditions are getting much worse and it’s getting darker,” Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, noted.
“What is being felt here in Tehran [Iran’s capital] is mostly that feeling of uncertainty.”
An Iranian state television reporter says that as it gets darker and colder, the crews approaching the site are avoiding travel by car, due to the roads in the area not being paved, and rain making the ground muddy.
Aviation in Iran has a poor record, in part due to sanctions
Iran’s aviation industry has had a horrendous record and that’s in part due to the fact that they can’t get the equipment they need to service their planes.
There have been sanctions in some form against Iran since the revolution in 1979.
Nearly 2,000 Iranians have lost their lives in plane crashes since 1979 and accidents involving Iranian airlines over that 44-year period have resulted in 1,755 casualties.
It shows that aviation in Iran is not particularly safe and part of that is the fact that they cannot get the parts, the aircraft and the equipment that other countries would just buy; they can’t do it, they’re not allowed to.