Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Helicopter carrying Iran's president suffers a ‘hard landing,’ rescue is under way
The helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi takes off at the Iranian border with Azerbaijan after President Raisi and his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev inaugurated dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, Iran, May 19, 2024 [Ali Hamed Haghdoust/IRNA via AP]

A HELICOPTER carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” amid poor weather in rugged territory today, Iranian state media reported. 

Mr Raisi was travelling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province with Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the provincial governor and other officials.

Mr Raisi had visited the border with Azerbaijan earlier to inaugurate a dam, the third the two nations have built on the Aras river, with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The visit came despite chilly relations between the two nations.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
People watch from a rooftop as a plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, March 1, 2026
Middle East / 3 March 2026
3 March 2026

History shows from Iraq to Libya, and now Iran, that regime-change fantasies rarely deliver stability — but they always deliver human and economic cost, says MARYAM ESLAMDOUST

People cross a street in downtown Tehran, Iran, August 28, 2025
Features / 30 August 2025
30 August 2025

Payam Solhtalab talks to GAWAIN LITTLE, general secretary of Codir, about the connection between the struggle for peace, against banking and economic sanctions, and the threat of a further military attack by the US/Israel axis on Iran

Demonstrators hold placards during a protest in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, August 9, 2025
Round-up / 10 August 2025
10 August 2025
Tehran 21.6.25
Features / 22 June 2025
22 June 2025

In the second of two articles, STEVE BISHOP looks at how the 1979 revolution’s aims are obfuscated to create a picture where the monarchists are the opposition to the theocracy, not the burgeoning workers’ and women’s movement on the streets of Iran