00:00 A Ben-212 helicopter carrying Iran's President and Foreign Minister crashed on Sunday, according
00:23 to Iranian state media, as it flew through mountains in heavy fog.
00:27 The tragic crash claimed the lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Affairs Minister
00:32 Amir Abdullahi and other officials travelling in the ill-fated helicopter.
00:37 The helicopter was carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister,
00:41 Hossein Amirabdollahi, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province, and other officials
00:45 and bodyguards, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
00:48 Raisi was returning from a trip to Iran's border with Azerbaijan early Sunday to inaugurate
00:53 the dam with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, the news agency said.
00:58 The helicopter apparently crashed or made an emergency landing in the Bismarck forest
01:02 between the cities of Varzakhan and Jolfa in Iran's East Azerbaijan province, near its
01:07 border with Azerbaijan, under circumstances that remain unclear.
01:10 Initially, Interior Minister Ahmad Wahidi said the helicopter was forced to make a hard
01:15 landing due to the bad weather and fog.
01:17 Raisi, with other leaders and officials, was travelling aboard a Ben-212 helicopter.
01:23 The Ben-212 helicopter, now Bell Textron, a division of Textron Inc., developed the aircraft
01:27 for the Canadian military in the late 1960s as an upgrade of the original UH-1 Iroquois.
01:33 The new design used two turboshaft engines instead of one, giving it greater carrying
01:38 capacity.
01:39 The helicopter was introduced in 1971 and quickly adopted by both the US and Canada,
01:45 according to US military training documents.
01:48 As a utility helicopter, the UH in its military designation represents those words, the Bell-212
01:53 is meant to be adaptable to all sorts of situations, including carrying people, deploying aerial
01:58 firefighting gear, ferrying cargo, and mounting weapons.
02:03 The Iranian model that crashed on Sunday was configured to carry government passengers.
02:07 Bell Helicopter advertises the latest version, the Subaru Bell 412, for police use, medical
02:12 transport, troop transport, the energy industry, and firefighting.
02:16 According to its type certification document with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency,
02:20 it can carry 15 people, including the crew.
02:22 Non-military organizations that fly the Bell-212 include Japan's Coast Guard, law enforcement
02:27 agencies and fire departments in the US, Thailand's National Police, and many others.
02:32 It is not clear how many runs government operates, but its Air Force and Navy have a total of
02:36 10, according to Flight Global's 2024 World Air Forces Directory.
02:47 The most recent fatal crash of a Bell-212 was in September 2023, when a privately operated
02:51 aircraft crashed off the coast of the UAE, according to the Flight Safety Foundation,
02:56 a non-profit focusing on aviation safety.
02:58 The most recent Iranian crash of this type was in 2018, killing four people, according
03:02 to the organization's database.
03:05 Iran enters a period of mourning as Mohammad Mughdeir assumes interim leadership following
03:10 President Raisi's tragic demise in a helicopter crash.
03:14 Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced a five-day mourning period and tasked Mughdeir with overseeing
03:18 the executive branch until a new president is elected within 50 days.
03:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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