DUBAI (Reuters) – The helicopter crash that killed late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in May was caused by weather conditions and the aircraft’s inability to handle the weight it was carrying, a semi-official Iranian news agency reported on Wednesday, citing a security source familiar with the final results of the investigation.
The communications center of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, responsible for disseminating information related to the investigation into the incident, said the report was “completely false,” state media reported.
An initial report by the Iranian military said last May that no evidence of a terrorist act or attack had been found during the investigation.
“The investigation into the crash of Ayatollah Raisi’s helicopter has been completed… There is complete certainty that what happened was an accident,” the unnamed security source told Fars News Agency.
The source added, according to Fars News Agency, that the cause of the accident was determined to be that the weather conditions were not suitable, and the helicopter was unable to bear the weight, which led to it colliding with a mountain.
The source added to Fars News Agency that investigations indicate that the helicopter was carrying two people more than the capacity allowed by security protocols.
Raisi, who was likely to be the successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the incident in a mountainous area near the border with Azerbaijan.