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Iran: No Survivors After Crash Of President Raisi's Helicopter. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired May 19, 2024 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:55:44]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Paula Newton, and we begin with breaking news out of Iran, where we're learning rescuers have now reached the site of the helicopter crash involving President Ebrahim Raisi.
Just a short time ago, Iranian media reported that the crash site had indeed been located after rescuers braved cold temperatures overnight searching the mountainous area in dense fog. The aircraft crashed on Sunday in Iran's East Azerbaijan province, after President Raisi and other officials and that included Iran's foreign minister attended a ceremony for the opening of a new near the border with Azerbaijan.
Now, Raisi can be seen here in helicopter. That's video that we received on Saturday. Right now at this hour, his condition and those are the other passengers is unknown. Iranians are being urged to pray for the president and those aboard the aircraft. A sentiment echoed by Iran's supreme leader.
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AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, IRAN'S SUPREME LEADER (through translator): We hope that Almighty God will return our dear president and his companions to the arms of the nation in full health.
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NEWTON: CNN's Ivan Watson has been tracking these latest developments for us and he joins us now from Hong Kong.
I mean, look, Ivan, the search, a conditions here, or close to impossible, they couldn't really get anything in the air for very long, was dense fog. They sent out hundreds, possibly thousands of people on foot.
What more you learning about what exactly they may have found?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, this crash site is believed to be near a small village in East Azerbaijan province in these rugged mountains of northwestern Iran, near a village called Tavil, and that is where the helicopter of the president is believed to have gone down, you know, at around 1:00 p.m. local time on Sunday. It's now almost 6:30 in the morning in this part of Iran.
The Iranians have had to not only deploy the military and dozens of teams scores of teams to search for the helicopter and the crew and the passengers on board that were nine people in total, including the president of Iran as well as the foreign minister and the crew, of course. But they have also relied on a drone from Turkey that has been deployed to help try to locate the crash site.
Now, the president in his helicopter had been flying back from a border region where he'd been inaugurating a dam project with the president of one of Iran's neighbors, of Azerbaijan, there was a three helicopter aerial convoy that were flying back from this ceremony. And two of the helicopters made it back safely. The president's helicopter sadly, did not.
So as you mentioned, the supreme leader, who is the most powerful figure in Iran has -- he has declared that Iran will remain stable through this crisis and has called for people, of course, to pray for the health of the passengers and crew on board. But in any country, if you had a president go down in an aircraft this would be a major political crisis and a shock to society. And Iran is no exception -- Paula.
NEWTON: Yeah, Ivan, it had certainly been a shock and certainly made much more difficult by the fact that this was a helicopter that perhaps was compromised. We don't know exactly if weather was the cause, if it was pilot judgment. But certainly a shock that a helicopter carrying really two of the most important politicians in the country would go down in this area in dense fog when it was clear, you know, the weather was less than ideal.
WATSON: No -- I mean, all of the footage that were seeing from the rescue effort, the weather forecast that we've gotten from the CNN weather center, they all indicate that there's dense fog, rain, and precipitation, and that the conditions were not good to be, certainly to be flying a helicopter in this area.
[23:00:11]
According to some reports, this was a Bell helicopter, U.S. made that were also trying to confirm that detail, but it does appear to look like that, which could suggest that it could have been decades-old, that presidential helicopter. But yet, there were three helicopters that were in this aerial convoy and only one of them crashed.
But yes, it was carrying the president. It was carrying the foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. At least three crew members, the governor of eastern Azerbaijan province. That's again where the ceremony had been taking place on the border with Azerbaijan, a separate country, of course, and then the Friday prayer, imam, who leads the Friday prayers in the city of Tabriz. That's the major metropolitan center in that part of Iran.
Paula, I have done a road trip through this part of Iran to the border to Turkey from Tehran and I can personally attest to the fact that this area is rugged. It is very sparsely populated as well, which perhaps explain why you would have such a high level delegation traveling by helicopter because any kind of trip by road would have taken hours and hours and also been on potentially the dangerous roads.
But this is a rugged and remote place and an indicator of perhaps why the Iranian authorities had to turn to Turkey to ask for help, bringing a drone in to look for the whereabouts of their own president -- Paula.
NEWTON: Yeah. It seems that bringing in that equipment, in fact, it helped to at least locate what they suspect is the site of the crash.
For those of us who are just joining us, I'm Paula Newton at CNN Center. Ivan Watson is with us from Hong Kong.
We want to bring you the breaking news now and remind you that rescuers have now reached the site of that crash that was apparently carrying the president of Iran, but also the foreign minister and seven other people. We are awaiting for more news to see what was found on that search.
Apparently, they did find this site on foot. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of rescuers really trying to scour this very sparsely populated area, rugged as Ivan just mentioned, with a terrible conditions, cold temperatures, dense fog and we will obviously remind everyone that the sun is just coming up in that area of Iraq. And no doubt that will also help them right now in their rescue efforts.
I mean, Ivan, I want to turn now to what we had mentioned before, the fact that in fact the supreme leader made a point of coming on television and addressing Iranians quite quickly. And his words were that there would be no disruption, but certainly this is coming as quite a shock to everyone in Iran at this hour.
WATSON: That's right. The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and Iran system of government, the president is elected but the most powerful figure in the country is without question, the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and there had long been rumors and speculation that in fact the President Ebrahim Raisi could potentially be a candidate to one day replace Khamenei in that position.
So that gives you a sense of his seniority and stature within the Islamic Republic of Iran. But the supreme leader, Khamenei, coming out with a statement, calling for prayers for the safe return of the president and his companions, but also going on to say, quote, everyone should pray for the health of this group of servants. The people of Iran do not worry, there will be no disruption in the work of the country.
So trying to project a message of stability to the people of Iran, and let's make no mistake. It's been a bumpy number of years in Iran. There have been economic problems there have certainly been intense political upheaval since the 2022 death in police custody of the Iranian woman Mahsa Amini who that kind of triggered an uprising for more than a year, and, well, crisis of legitimacy for the government in the Islamic Republic of Iran, for the government there.
And the president has been seen very much as a hardliner. He was elected in 2021 when there was very little opposition that real political opponents had been effectively disqualified from the election and historically the lowest voter participation rate in the history of the Islamic republic of Iran.
So a polarizing figure inside the country, and there have already been signs on social media of Iranians, of Iranians in the Iranian diaspora celebrating the news of the crash of this helicopters.
[23:05:05]
So that just gives you a sense of how some people are reacting to what without question in any country would be a major shock to a society, crash of an aircraft where the president of the country and the foreign minister, I might add and a regional governor, were all on board this aircraft.
We're still waiting to hear exactly what the rescuers have seen on the ground there. And in the meantime, Polo, we've heard messages pouring in from governments around the world. Russia, for instance, as saying that it is rushing aircraft in rescuers to the area to help out with this.
And in fact, the Iranian ambassador to Moscow, he reports that he's had a meeting with Vladimir Putin, at 10:00 p.m. local time on Sunday in Moscow, which just kind of reflects a little bit about the importance that other world leaders are putting in this. It also highlights the partnership between those two countries, Russia and Iran -- Paula.
NEWTON: Ivan, I'm just going to interrupt you there as we do have breaking news. We now know a reporting from Iranian state media that in fact, there were no survivors found at the crash site of that helicopter carrying not just President Raisi, but the foreign minister and seven others. Again, state media saying that in fact, no survivors were found at this site.
And, Ivan, you know, from the first moment that we heard about this crash, given the weather conditions and given the fact that there was no beacon, there was no alert. They did not get any kind of signal of distress from this helicopter. Many feared the worst. And now were learning that there are no survivors aboard that helicopter.
WATSON: This is enormous and tragic news in Iran. The loss of the president of the country, of the country's most senior diplomat, of a governor of a senior cleric, and, of course, the crew members on that aircraft nine people onboard there has been conflicting information. Paula, in the frantic search and rescue effort because there were officials, the vice president of the country, no less, who were saying that they had been getting some kind of messages from at least two people on board the aircraft.
And I guess well have to wait and see that have been just conflicting information or not. But I think without question, the headline here is the death now of the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, elected in controversial elections in 2021, and perceived as a hardliner in the spectrum of Iranian politics, the most senior diplomat in the country. That's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and at least seven other people were believed to have been on board the aircraft. A question now, well turn to transition of power in the aftermath of this tragedy. The vice president of the country, who I think experts that I've talked to will argue that very few Iranians actually know who this man is a man named Mohammad Mokhber.
And according to the Iranian constitution, he would then take the post of president in the country and then the constitution stipulates that in the next 50 days that a council, including this interim president, and the speaker of parliament, and the head of Iran's powerful judiciary, that they would then have to set up elections for the next president.
We also have to keep in mind, of course, in Iran's unique system of government, that the most powerful, without question, figure in Iranian politics is the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei who has already come out in the aftermath of this now deadly crash to vow that that stability will continue in the Islamic republic, moving forward, whatever may happen, but also calling for prayers for the health healthy and safe return of the crew members and the passengers on board.
We are now learning from Iranian state media that the president of the country and the foreign minister and the other passengers and crew have all died aboard, this helicopter crash that took place Sunday afternoon in remote mountains of northwestern Iran.
So I think we can see that we can anticipate that very quickly, the people who've been praying for their safe return will now turn to prayers of mourning in Iran.
NEWTON: Indeed, it will be hours and days of mourning ahead. Again, it is 6:39 a.m. in fact, in Tehran.
[23:10:04]
And in that country has everyone wakes up well be learning the news that both the president and as you say, the foreign minister now dead in that helicopter crash.
I mean, look, Ivan, it -- obviously, President Raisi was very, very close to the supreme leader. Some say he was handpicked by him. Some say that he could have eventually have been his successor. Few doubt though that the direction of Iran, whether internally and the way they have certainly clamp down on any protest and dissent inside the country. And the forward posture, the certainly the widening Middle East conflict that Iran has been provoking in the region, that none of that will change no matter what kind of process is now in place to have this kind of a political dialogue that will now happen in the coming days and weeks.
WATSON: Well, the supreme leader is still in place. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which she is at the center of the defense and the outreach and coordination with Iran's allies and proxies in a very turbulent Middle East, they are still in place.
There will be questions internally in the parlor games of who could become the next leader. There are other ambitious policy petitions inside Iran who may seek to win the presidency in a future election if it is to take place. Ebrahim Raisi, while being mourned by a section of the Iranian population, his crash will be celebrated by other Iranians who have been alienated by the hard-line tactics of this man himself, and of the Iranian regime.
Recall that, you know, there have been periodic uprisings in modern Iranian history since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But over the past 20 years, I've covered a number of them I and just since 2022, there's been an uprising and many would argue a crisis of legitimacy and credibility of the current government. So, the authorities there will have to manage the next transition and how it moves forward.
Then there's the very complicated international and regional picture where the shadow war that had long been fought between Iran, sworn enemy, Israel, and Tehran, that it has broken open into the open in the wake of the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza where you had just last month the Iranian government, for the very first time, fire hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel -- Israel retaliating with a direct strike on Iran. Those tensions are out in the open right now.
And Iran has other enemies. It has been openly supplying Russia with Shahid drones wounds that have been launched at Ukrainian cities over the course of the last year plus, racking up a death count there.
So this is a very complicated time and Iran has its own internal economic challenges as well. Some people questioning why the president of the country would have been flying in a U.S. made helicopter when Iran famously broke with the U.S. in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution. So, this will be a challenge for the Iranian authorities to manage moving forward. But much of the security architecture and the architecture of governance, despite now the untimely death of the president will still be in place moving forward -- Paula.
NEWTON: Yes, certainly, the supreme leader basically insinuating that there will be a smooth transition here depending on the political process, on how long it takes he wanted to reassure Iranians.
And, Ivan, you did bring up a very good point that, of course, the reaction inside of Iran is going to be quite different from those outside of Iran. A dissidents who just starting with the tenure of President Raisi, have been fearful of returning to his Iran, fearful that they would not be safe given how they express themselves outside of the country, whether its students or other dissidents.
Ivan, I want you to stand by for us as we continue to follow this breaking news.
Again, a reminder that are on state media now saying that there were no survivors of that helicopter crash. And that in fact they do believe that nine people were onboard, including the country's president, Ebrahim Raisi, and the country's foreign minister.
I want to bring in CNN military analysts and retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Cedric Leighton.
Thanks so much for joining us.
I mean, listen, as Ivan was just saying, right, this is a U.S. helicopter, no doubt getting parts for it, under sanctions, wouldn't have been easy. But again, they were flying these things.
How much do you think that may have contributed or as you and I know from being on helicopters, weather, and the judgment of a pilot and maybe failure of instrumentation. What do you think could have possibly going on here?
CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, Paula, I think a lot of these factors could have combined actually to create that so-called perfect storm, where these situations could have resulted in the death of the radiant president and his foreign minister but, yeah, this helicopter was probably a Bell 212, which is an older version of a Bell model that's been really exported number of different countries throughout the years.
But this particular version had basically a life that was stopped production -- production life that stopped in the 1998 or so. It was first produced in the United States and then in Canada. But it was first introduced during the time of the shah, the latter period of the shah's rule in 1976, in commercial forum. And it had life before that in the U.S. military. So the actual start of this particular type of fellow copter may have been as early as the late 1960s.
So as you mentioned, spare parts would have definitely been an issue for the Iranians. But in this particular case, I think this confluence of spare parts because of the sanctions, plus, the weather in which was a very bad -- the last few days in this particular part of northwestern Iran, all of that, I think contributed to a series of incidents and a series of decisions that the pilot and possibly even the president himself made when it came to flying this aircraft in believe they shouldn't have done so under these conditions, but they did. And unfortunately for them, the result is this crash.
NEWTON: So, you know, we just leaned on your aviation experience, but I want to lean on your military experience now, especially she and when it comes to chain of command, and what was going on, you have the president of the country on this helicopter from our reporting, there was some kind of security official also well onboard another perhaps a bodyguard.
At what point though in that chain of command, do you have to ensure the safety of the leader of the country to say, I don't care we have to go this helicopter is not taking off? And I will add, what do you think it means that this was in a convoy apparently of three helicopters and this was the one that crashed? So, only one of three apparently crashed?
LEIGHTON: Yeah. That is an interesting fact very idea, Paula, that we had three helicopters is kind of normal procedure when it comes to transporting VIPs, you have a decoy, you have a helicopter that handles one part of the party and another helicopter that handles and other parts, so that you kind of divide things up in that way to ensure the survival of a government doing that, a continuity of government average.
And in this particular case, when it comes to the chain of command on the military side in the U.S. system, the pilot is the final arbiter when it comes to flight safety issues and whether or not the aircraft is supposed to fly and that goes for fixed-wing aircraft as well as for rotary-wing aircraft. And in this particular case, in the Iranian system, you wonder if there was pressure put on the pilot by some one in the president's entourage or maybe from the president himself to fly anyway, regardless of the weather, regardless of other conditions.
It's probably the case that the pilot had had experienced buying in bad weather before and had obviously survived that particular incident. Are those particular incidents and so that may have thought that he could get away with it the other aircraft, the other helicopters made it safely, and, of course, there was an international relations component to this as well because the president of Iran will coming back from a visit with his counterpart in Azerbaijan, where they had inaugurated a new dam that was spanning the river that divides the two countries.
So there are a lot of factors that could have happened, too, but from a chain of command perspective, the pilot should always be the final one to determine whether or not it's safe enough to fly under particular conditions.
NEWTON: Yeah, it's interesting as you say that that they do have the final word given the weather conditions and what we've been looking at, the weather conditions have been absolutely horrible.
So, standby for us, Colonel.
We're going to take our first look now apparently at a still photograph that has been released to us with state media there. And that's all we see. You can serve at least see the rugged terrain. You can see it is clearing whether it looks marginally better, but you're looking at some pretty rugged territory there, and not much else quite frankly.
[23:20:02]
That is the first picture of the site that we have been given.
Colonel, I wonder when you see rugged terrain, you're seeing fog, cold temperatures as well -- it had gone down to perhaps eight degrees Celsius in the evening. When you see that, depending on the -- apparently, it was early afternoon around 1:00 p.m. that it went down -- I mean, what would you be thinking in terms of instrumentation, right? In terms of your navigational facilities, what you had at your disposable to be able to help you navigate towards what are obviously very dangerous mountains there, especially in bad weather?
LEIGHTON: Yeah. One of the key things here is visual flight rules as they call the, and the basic idea is that the pilot has to fly according to what he or she sees. I -- and they shouldn't have knowledge of the territory. They have maps. They have an ability to use their radar systems if they have them to navigate through mountains and through dangerous areas like this.
The problem that you have in a case of this type is that they may have been pressured or even been told to fly at lower altitudes. And sometimes, low altitude flying can be very unsafe especially in dangerous weather conditions. In the military, you often fly at low altitudes in order to be radar.
There may have been some thought that in order to protect the president from potential threats external to the aircraft such as a missile trying to shoot it down or something like that, that they flew what's called nap of the earth, which is basically flying along the contour of the Earth below them, and that could result in some very dangerous practices if you haven't done it enough, or if you haven't practice in that particular part of the country.
So there's several things that could have gone on here that could have resulted in this disaster. But the big aspect of Paula is that there are certain rules that they would have to follow and the if they don't follow those rules, then you both radar perspective and from visual flight rules perspective, they would have to make sure that they gain enough to two to avoid mountains and other objects that could be an impediment to their, to their forward progress.
NEWTON: And the first hours we had heard this described as a heart hard landing. I mean, obviously in that kind of terrain and that kind of whether there really is no such thing, right? I mean, it would be very difficult to pull anything like that off.
LEIGHTON: Yeah, it would be because, you know, that mean hard landings do happen all the time. You know, if you go into I altitude airports, like let's say La Paz, Bolivia, or someplace like that. You often slam down onto the tarmac really quickly and that's because of the altitude and because of the way air pressure works on the aircraft.
But for helicopters, they're a bit more flexible than fixed wing aircraft. And in this particular situation, hard landing while possible once I heard weird occurred and under what conditions, I felt it was unlikely even before the reports came in, and was this one it was really a crash that this was anything other than that.
And it seems that, you know, in this particular case, they took a situation where they I thought they could probably get away with getting the president to maybe to (INAUDIBLE), maybe even all the way to Tehran, but that's a very efforts clearly was not good enough in this particular case because what you did, and what were they ended up doing was they ended up not taking it to account the vagaries of the weather, the problem with the terrain, and really the fact that craft was just so old that that I think were all contributing factors in this case.
NEWTON: Can you think of any reason why they would still be flying a helicopter like this beyond the obvious that they'd been under sanctions for decades. I mean, here designing and exporting drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. And yet they haven't really gotten up to speed on the helicopter. The convoy of helicopters, I guess you call them carrying the most important leader in the country outside of the supreme leader himself.
LEIGHTON: Well, I think, yeah, it's an interesting idea, Paula, but when you look at the way a country like Iran is trying to not only evade sanctions, but also to kind of create a degree of self-reliance from an economic standpoint, some aspects of it there, quite good at such as the ones that you mentioned and shouldn't do they are they can produce those in there basically masters of what I would call asymmetric warfare or are weapons that can be used asymmetrically, in this something drones some of these ship borne assets that they have which are basically sea-born drones in many cases.
[23:25:11]
They are really good at this, but they're not good to add in Iran on is a putting the more sophisticated aircrafts elements together, such as, it would be necessary to develop manned fixed-wing aircraft, and manned rotary-wing aircraft like helicopters. They don't have the industrial base to do that. They haven't concentrated on that they could do it if they put a pair of put their minds to that particular thing, but they decided to, for various reasons not to do that.
And the result is that they are still relying on airframes that were in service during the shah's time. So you're talking pre-1979, and that's approaching basically 45 almost 50 years of service in some cases and that is really the lifespan of many airframes. You really don't want to go beyond that in certain instances. Of course, there are exceptions comes to that.
But I -- in a situation where you cant maintain the aircraft adequately, you're going to run into a lot of different problems some of those smaller problems. It can really magnify in a situation like this, and that's where you get into aircraft accidents the Iranians have had aircraft accidents that have involved some their older fighter jets that were U.S. made and this is kind of a manifestation of that difficulty that they have.
NEWTON: Yes, quite fine point you made of that, though. You're looking at an airframe once like you said, is almost a half century old now. Colonel Leighton, stand by for us as we continue to follow this breaking news.
I want to bring in, CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak, who's joining us now.
I mean, look, U.S. President Biden has been traveling this weekend. He was actually here in Atlanta giving a speech earlier, a probably around the time that this news broke, he was briefed, we're told. There's an incredibly difficult and delicate situation for the Biden administration.
What more you learning in terms of the kinds of briefing that the president received in the last few hours? KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, it is delicate and I think that's part of the reason why you haven't seen the White House or the United States generally say anything specific about what's going on on the ground there, as they were working to ascertain what exactly had happened to President Raisi.
Certainly, President Biden had received briefings as he traveled about the country today, but I can tell you, Paula, inside the White House, and the State Department, they were keeping a very, very close eye on this with the great fear that this could just add greater uncertainty to an already volatile situation in the Middle East, which is certainly the top item on President Biden's a foreign policy agenda at the moment.
And I think for Biden at this moment, the real question is whether this will change anything. Does this portend a change in relations with Iran? Does it portend any sort of adaptation inside the Iranian government when it comes to its posture towards the United States? I think when you talk to American officials, the expectations for that kind of shift are low.
So, the question now is what this means for the broader conflict. And, of course, President Biden, since October 7, has overarching goal has been to prevent a wider regional war, to avoid the us getting dragged in closer to direct conflict with the United States. And in fact, the U.S. had held indirect conversations with Iran to that front including reportedly just last week.
I think part of the issue today as President Biden was working to figure out what was going on that the U.S. of course, does not have any diplomatic relations with Iran. They were sort of relying on media reports as well as countries in Europe that do have relations with Iran of sort of determine what was going on, on the ground.
But, of course, President Biden has a lot of issues on its play on his plate, either directly or indirectly, tie in to whoever is in leadership in Tehran, whether its the crisis in the Middle East or the crisis in Ukraine where around is supplying Russia with drones in the us has worked to cut up that supply chains. A lot of question, I think the white going forward but not a lot of hope that this will necessarily change has been among the nine influence in all of these areas that President Biden has been focused on the last several months.
NEWTON: Yeah, it certainly has been a more assertive foreign policy in the last few years, as Raisi has been in office.
And yet as you pointed out, fascinating, Kevin, to think that just last week, President Raisi and his foreign minister have given permission for Iranian officials to be in Oman with U.S. officials in separate rooms to try and at least talk through Omani officials and talk about trying to contain what is already a very difficult situation in the Middle East.
[23:30:15] I wonder though, in terms of emboldening the proxy certainly since President Biden has come to office, Iran has continued to put the pedal down on all of its proxies in the region and showed certainly no sign that it was going to hold back. I'm wondering if you had sense any hope from the Biden administration that things could change there. I mean, many have criticized the Biden administration for its stand on Iran and certainly they didn't come to any kind of agreement with President Raisi on being able to show any moderation when it came to emboldening those proxies.
LIPTAK: Yeah. I don't think they're probably at this point is great deal of guidance, that posture will change whether it comes to Houthis in Yemen or proxies in other parts of Middle East. And you have seen proxies target American troop and so, President Biden while attempting to position the United States and wait deter those proxies, President Biden also tried to avoid escalation or tit-for-tat, back and forth that the furious any instant the White House would bring you closer into direct conflict.
And so I think there's uncertainty is why having this very closely, I think the other issue that American officials want to see how this is nuclear program, which of U.S. had tried to contain through the nuclear deal, President Trump withdrew from that, attempts at getting that back on the tool in early days of Biden administration of eventually failed the talks died. Now there attempts to bring that heel back to the table and Iran has been developing Ukrainian (INAUDIBLE) or any to a point that has caused a great deal of uncertainty. And that is the sort of the big question I think President Biden has at this hour.
NEWTON: Right. Kevin, we're going to leave it there for now. I appreciate you jumping on for us and we'll come back to you, especially if you get any kind of reaction from the Biden administration, please let us know.
We are now going to go to CNN's Paula Hancocks. She's joining us from Abu Dhabi.
And really, Paula, it was something to see in terms of the solidarity in the region when this rescue effort was mounted, you certainly had Turkey pitch in, the UAE, even the Saudis saying that they would do what they could to help and now dealing with quite a political earthquake in the region as Iran and also the region comes to term -- come to terms with the death of President Raisi.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Paula, I mean, you had Turkey for example, offering a heat drone fairly early on its believed that this was an integral part in being able to locate the area of the crash itself. So certainly we've seen a lot of different countries around the region offering their help, offering anything that they could do. Russia, for example, was going to send planes and experts and even the European Union offering their help as well when it came to satellite technology, trying to locate the crash site.
So, certainly, we have seen that solidarity with countries, trying to help, of course. Now we have heard from state media that there were no survivors at the crash site that they have found at this point, and it is going to be somewhat of a political earthquake, certainly within Iran. There will be questions about how this effects the wider region as well.
It is worth pointing out and worth remembering that President Raisi was the second most powerful man in Iran. Obviously, Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader carries the most weight he carries the most power within Iran itself health. We also know that the infrastructure, the security infrastructure, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, for example, are extremely power -- powerful. They were also still in place.
So, yes, there is a significant thing that has happened, the fact that president was on board the top diplomat, the foreign minister was on board, a governor of East Azerbaijan province was on board, nine people in all.
So this is a very significant event for Iranians to be waking up to now, this Monday. But when it comes to how it may change the region, how it may change relations, how it may affect even decisions that around itself is making.
[23:35:03]
There is the potential for not much change at all. We've already heard from the supreme leader. That there will be stability, that things will continue can you and this was before they knew that there were no survivors on board that helicopter.
So, certainly, this is going to shake up many as they wake up to this news. And the political scene will look quite different in Iran over the coming days and weeks. But when it comes to the wider region potentially, this will not have a significant impact -- Paula.
HANCOCKS: In fact, there will likely take the supreme leader at his word, right, that he says there will be no disruption and I'm assuming in capitals in the region, they will continue to believe that this will be essentially the same for what is a very conservative and hard line regime.
Again, President Raisi being incredibly close to the supreme leader himself. Some people thought he might actually be a successor to him someday.
But I want to ask you, Paula, you know, we just had this up of this rugged, mountainous territory where this helicopter went down. It must be an incredibly -- it must be an incredible blow just to the reputation of the military, the Revolutionary Guard, the security in place there to have both the president and the foreign minister die in a helicopter crash like this. I mean, it's stunning. All you have left of these nine souls that we know so far, is this still picture that were looking at.
HANCOCKS: This is an incredibly difficult terrain to try and find the location of a helicopter crash. We know for a fact that the weather conditions were extremely
difficult. Of course, questions will be asked about whether or not that helicopter should even have been in the air given the fact we know it was extremely foggy, visibility was very difficult. The rescue teams themselves took 17 hours, almost two to five find the location of this crash, showing just how difficult it was to be able to locate them.
They couldn't -- the rescue teams couldn't put helicopters in the air to try and find this location because it was simply too dangerous. So there will be questions about that no doubt, the fact that the president and the foreign minister, were on the same helicopter as well.
We know there were three helicopters within this convoy that came from the eastern Azerbaijan province to where the president and his entourage had been at a dam inauguration with the president of neighboring Azerbaijan. We know that there were three helicopters in that convoy to managed to get back. One did not, and that was the one that was carrying the presidents and the top diplomat.
Now it is a very inhospitable terrain. So helicopter really would have been the way that they would have transported VIPs. It wouldn't have been practical to go by but by road, for example, it would have taken hours and those roads in that area are certainly not safe either, but there will be many questions about the state of the helicopter, about the decision to go into the air in the first place when conditions were so bad.
And, of course, we do know that the rescue teams themselves, had difficulty even progressing towards this site. They said that the fog made visibility extremely the bad. We know that there were sub-zero temperatures at the peaks of some of these, these mountainous areas. And there were concerns about being able to read which dislocation because of the cold.
So they really did seem to be a number of factors put together that that will raise questions as to why this helicopter was in the air.
NEWTON: Yeah, Paula. And as you were speaking earlier, we showed more of a close-up of the wreckage of blue and white wreckage absolutely chilling there at the side of the mountain, as I'm sure rescue workers could continue their grim work now at that site.
Paula Hancocks for us as you continue to follow original reaction appreciate it.
And we'll be right back on our -- with our breaking news in just a moment.
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[23:41:24]
NEWTON: I'm Paula Newton and we are back to our breaking news out of Iran where we've learned there are no survivors of the crash side of the helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi.
Now the aircraft went down on Sunday in Iran's East Azerbaijan province after the president and other officials, including Iran's foreign minister, attended a ceremony for the opening of a new dam near the border with Azerbaijan. Rescuers had faced difficult weather conditions overnight, including cold and heavy fog as they scrambled to try and locate that crashed site.
Arash Azizi is a contributor for "The Atlantic" and he joins us now from New York.
I just want to get your reaction to what is incredibly shocking and stunning news about the president and the foreign minister in Iran have died in that helicopter crash. You can only imagine certainly the shock this morning in Iran as people are just waking up to this news.
ARASH AZIZI, CONTRIBUTOR, THE ATLANTIC: Absolutely. It's definitely a shocking news. You know, Ebrahim Raisi had a lot of blood on his hands. Reality perhaps no other official of the Islamic Republic is responsible for more deaths because he was in the judiciary for many years. And so a lot of Iranians are going to shed no tears. Some of them have event what if celebrated in some ways.
But nevertheless, its definitely a really momentous occasion as the poverty struggle between different factions in Islamic Republic is surely going to heighten now as there be presidential elections within days. And I think a lot of people are will be no be focused on that now, already we've seen the price of the U.S. dollar has risen. That means there's a -- that's been dropping the Iranian rial. So it's already making an effect and definitely we now going to enter a tumultuous period for a few weeks.
NEWTON: Yeah. And certainly hours and days hey, is perhaps even weeks of mourning. I have to ask you though, the supreme leader has come out and said that look in his words, there would be no disruption and yet you are hinting there, obviously at a certain modicum of destabilization to put it mildly.
What do you think is the risk here now though for Iran? Because, you know, President Raisi, and the supreme leader were really in lockstep. They were both hardliners, both religious conservatives.
AZIZI: Yeah, there won't be sort of a constitutional crisis. The Islamic republic has been defined institutions, so I don't think we will have something like that, that no, the VP Mokhber will take the reins. They will organize the elections in 50 days. So I don't think you'll have any huge surprises there.
There might be occasions for popular what does again, as there often isn't, there's sort of a political crisis, but I don't find it very likely actually, but we can never predict those things.
So I don't think there would be immediate lets discontinuous with the government or constitutional crisis. But I do think the real story here is that commonly is 85 and he's going to die so already, yes, its true that they were both hardliners and pretty much all the major players are different sorts of conservatives and hard-liners.
But nevertheless, they're pretty important differences amongst them. For example, this speaker of parliament, Bagher Ghalibaf, is someone who is probably want to run for presidency. He's a technocratic figure. I think Khamenei would not be happy at all for someone like him to be president, especially if he ends up becoming president at these key moments and harmony is that there would be important would be a lot of infighting I believe.
But, you know, not sort of -- I don't -- constitutional crisis still fight reading, reading the channels as much as they can.
[23:45:03]
And, of course, when Khamenei is finally dead, you know, that would be very different. So I think in a way, everyone is preparing things for that moment. And making sure that they have a good hand and that moment arrives, and so that they can have a succession.
NEWTON: And I want to ask you just to give us some insight into the reaction of Iranians this morning as they're learning all of this, both those who of course, will detest President Raisi, and all he stands for and yet, certainly a fragment of the population significant portion of the population that actually saw him as a pious conservative figure that they believe was safe-guarding Iran's legacy, both religiously and politically.
AZIZI: For sure. I mean, I believe the Islamic republic itself has about sort of 10, 15 percent support around a society that's based, and if you look at elections, for example, that's the kind of number of the whole population that, that votes its for someone like President Raisi. He's -- he was handed in the presidency in 2021.
This was the first truly uncompetitive elections since 1997. So for, you know, usually, Islamic republic elections have never been a free and fair, but they're often competitive. But in 2021, there was no competition. They handed to him.
But after say that he's also just a -- he was a sort of an insignificant figure in some ways by which I mean that he was seen as someone who was rubber stamp. He was seen as someone who was a placeholder effectively. He didn't have a lot of political experience when he first ran his first big public spotlight, was it he ran for president in 2017.
It was very clear that he didn't have what it takes, frankly to survive in a very tough political competition that can exist in regime has and he had every little charisma have been a bit bureaucratic behind the scenes as, as a percent the judiciary and again, as I said in 1988, he was part of the so-called death panel, which was responsible for sending thousands of Iranian political prisoners, most of them I've already served their sentence to their deaths.
So very likely a contender for as a role in a crime against humanity and he was not seeing it. For example, if you look at the protests of the last few years, very few people even protested against him because he was just basically not seen as someone who was important enough in the power structure.
Nevertheless, I do believe his death is politically significant because dav arrested he was connected to very important circles of power in Islamic republic. Those in the holy city of Mashhad, for example, where he's from and where he held some very important posts and his father-in-law holds a very important post as well. And some others who did so well in the parliamentary elections, some group of ultra hardliners, but very well in the parliamentary elections earlier this year. So I believe that Raisi's death and how the next presidential elections will play out certainly have political significance and have altered the balance of power veered into factions of the Islamic Republic.
NEWTON: So, after discussing what is likely going to be the reaction within Iran and what this has triggered in terms of a political process, now we go to external pressures and the external reaction. I want to talk first about the Middle East. Are was, as I say, some solidarity in the region you had Turkey, the UAE, even Saudi Arabia offering whatever they could do to try and locate this helicopter.
How do you believe this may change Iran, and what it has managed to do in the last few years in the region? Which is be quite provocative with its proxies.
AZIZI: I mean, I think there's a minimum of decency that countries of the region will offer country like Turkey. President Erdogan immediately use the word sort of my brother for President Raisi.
I think there is, as I said, meme of decency and Iran has been able to reestablish diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia following many years, where none of that. So it's sort of most basic expectations of states, especially neighboring states, to offer this kind of helped each other. These are also mostly Muslim states. Should matter on some level.
Now, I don't think President Raisi's death will mean any immediate shift in the Islamic republic's policies that are domestic or foreign, that's because most of the power is held by supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, whose family in power. But I think down the road, you know, as I said, it is affected the power struggle.
Now, if someone like Ghalibaf, who's the speaker of the parliament, is able to capture the presidency and then if he is then able to play a role in the succession crisis that will follow for Ayatollah Khamenei's death whenever that comes, then we can see important and shifting policies, part of which might be a different role for the militia as and a less of an attempt to cause instability in the countries of the region, and also importantly, of course, it in sort of confrontation with Israel.
[23:50:12]
Another important matter, of course, is the nuclear program. There has been a very important shift, I mean, the last few months in many running officials openly now speak about possibility of developing a nuclear weapon I don't think ultimately Iran would make that decision. But that's also something to be -- something very important basically on the desk of harmony for now and for whoever else is going to be a powerful in Iran in the next little while the question of the nuclear fight and what to do with it.
And also the secret negotiations and not so secret horses were talking about them that been going on with the United States, as you mentioned earlier in Oman. Nuclear issue is part of them. They're regional peace and conditions are part of them, is they're all going to be political, politically relevant issues in the years to come.
NEWTON: Arash Azizi, a contributor for "The Atlantic", we really want to thank you for your thoughts as we continue just to try and absorb this incredibly stunning news out of Iran. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
And joining me now from Los Angeles to CNN senior political analyst, Ron Brown. He's also a senior editor at "The Atlantic".
Ron, just to talk about this for a minute in terms of the Biden administration -- I mean, it must have been quite a day as they continued to get these updates. It's such a difficult time for President Biden as well.
As I said, it was just last week that President Raisi, and President Biden gave their blessing for their officials to be in separate rooms, but to be in Oman but talking about how to avoid any more escalation in the Middle East.
I mean, how delicate do you think this is in terms of the Biden administration and what they should be doing at this hour?
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's an incredibly delicate moment underscored by the fact that Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has been in the Middle East trying to conclude an agreement, a three-way agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel, and the U.S. in effect to create -- kind of tilt the axis in the region into a regional alliance against Iran.
And this is -- Saudi Arabia has put out positive statements about how close the agreement is but the critical piece, of course, Israel reaching its own agreement with the Palestinians, and they're being great turmoil in Israel about that. So you have so many movie in pieces is at once that the prospect of further instability in Iran, if in fact there, I guess now there does have to be an election. And who knows how that will play out in terms of allowing domestic discontent to surface there.
I mean, all of this is there are a lot of balls up in the air right now for the Biden administration and really not only for the Biden administration, but for all the players in the region.
NEWTON: At the time when you wanted to have a clear view, right? Of what you thought was possible in Iran, what you thought you could get out of the leadership, you then have this destabilization in what is to put it in a trite form, an absolute mess in the Middle East. It is going to take significant navigation. Some have suggested that Joe Biden himself has not been that deft when trying to negotiate with Iran at this point, because it really gave carte blanche to its militias and its proxies to do what they have been doing in the Middle East.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, they had hoped that they it could rekindle the nuclear deal and that got to a point, and then -- and then no further. Iran has been, as you say, incredibly provocative across the region.
But in important respects, that very provocative approach of Iran has allowed the administration to make progress on these other front. And the idea of a regional alliance to contain Iran that would building on a diplomatic initiatives of the Trump administration, the so-called Abraham Accords that would bring together Saudi Arabia and Israel and the U.S. into kind of a closer three-way relationship, but they are -- the administration is running into the intransigence of the Netanyahu government, who is not willing to take any of the steps that might be necessary to achieve this kind of transformational agreement with Saudi Arabia.
So as always, the Middle East, more frustrates than creates opportunities for break for those in many ways, the best outcome is just simply avoiding the worst outcome but as you say -- I mean, just one more complication at a time when there are so many moving pieces and ones that have tremendous political implications, not only in the region, but in the U.S.
NEWTON: Before I let you go, Ron, I mean, this issue of this axis of resistance, right? I mean, I know what you're saying in terms of putting up something against Iran.
[23:55:02]
And yet at this moment in time, Iran is going to at least be distracted in this period of mourning --
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.
NEWTON: -- you know, no matter what. How will it affect Joe Biden though as he is also obviously in the middle of a tough campaign right now?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, as I say, I mean, they're big hope, you know, both diplomatically and electorally is that if you can get the fighting in Gaza, stop, that you can get a ceasefire, that and you he get some commitment from the Israeli government toward even a problem process of negotiation with the Palestinians that would unlock potentially, and now, in all likelihood, this broader regional agreement with Saudi Arabia. And instead of going into the Democratic convention this summer against the backdrop of continued fighting in Gaza, they could theoretically be going into the convention against the backdrop of this historic or transformational agreement between the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Israel, and at least a runway for our process toward a settling or at least managing the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
I mean, those are two completely different worlds for Joe Biden and that opportunity is there. Netanyahu sees it in his political interests to be squashing that. But as, you know, as you no doubt talked about, there are great drains (ph) and the Israeli government about that. So we're seeing fractures really in every country that is involved except perhaps Saudi Arabia.
NEWTON: And incredibly fraught political tension within.
Ron Brownstein for us, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
I want to thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Newton. I will be right back with more of our breaking news coverage on the death of President Raisi in Iran.
