Iran asked US to provide assistance after helicopter crash but was ‘unable’ to

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller

* We did make clear to them that we would offer assistance, as we would do in response to any request by a foreign government in this sort of situation

* Ultimately, largely for logistical reasons, we were unable to provide that assistance—US State Department

Reuters

The United States on Monday said it had been unable, due largely to logistical reasons, to accept an Iranian request for assistance following a helicopter crash over the weekend that killed President Ebrahim Raisi, as Washington offered its condolences.

The rare request from Iran, which views the United States and Israel as its main adversaries, was disclosed by the State Department at a news briefing.

“We were asked for assistance by the Iranian government,” spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters. “We did make clear to them that we would offer assistance, as we would do in response to any request by a foreign government in this sort of situation.

“Ultimately, largely for logistical reasons, we were unable to provide that assistance,” Miller said, without elaborating.

The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers and crew, was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.

Iran has still not provided any official word on the cause of the crash of the US-made Bell 212 helicopter in mountains near the Azerbaijan border and asked whether he was concerned that Tehran might blame Washington, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: “The United States had no part to play in that crash. I can’t speculate on what may have been the cause.”

Still, Austin played down any US concerns that the crash might have immediate security implications in the Middle East, saying: “I don’t necessarily see any broader, regional security impact at this point.”

The Bell 212 model helicopter, a civilian version of the ubiquitous Vietnam War-era UH-1N ‘Twin Huey’, are in wide use globally by both governments and private operators — developed by the Canadian military in the late 1960s as an upgrade of the original UH-1 Iroquois.

The new design used two turboshaft engines instead of one, giving it greater carrying capacity. The helicopter was introduced in 1971 and was quickly adopted by both the United States and Canada, according to US military training documents.

As a utility helicopter, the Bell 212 is meant to be adaptable to all sorts of situations, including carrying people, deploying aerial firefighting gear, ferrying cargo and mounting weapons.

The Iranian model that crashed on Sunday was configured to carry government passengers. Bell Helicopter advertises the latest version, the Subaru Bell 412, for police use, medical transport, troop transport, the energy industry and firefighting.

According to its type certification documents with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, it can carry 15 people, including the crew.

Non-military organisations that fly the Bell 212 include Japan’s Coast Guard; law enforcement agencies and fire departments in the United States; Thailand’s national police; and many others.

It is not clear how many Iran’s government operates, but its air force and navy have a total of 10, according to FlightGlobal’s 2024 World Air Forces directory.

Iran was a major purchaser of Bell and Agusta helicopters under the Shah, becoming the Middle East’s largest military helicopter power, according to Western reports.

Iran’s current fleet includes an Italian-built naval version, the Agusta Bell AB-212, according to IISS. The exact origin of the helicopter involved in the crash was not confirmed but an Iranian source said it was connected to the Islamic Republic Red Crescent Society.

Experts said the few details available suggested it may be 40 to 50 years old and the most recent fatal crash of a Bell 212 was in September 2023, when a privately operated aircraft crashed off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to the Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit focusing on aviation safety.

The most recent Iranian crash of the type was in 2018, killing four people, according to the organisation’s database. In 2015, the same database cited reports that a helicopter believed to be an AB-212 had crashed near Kashan, killing three.

Iran has kept its civil and military aviation fleets flying during its isolation since the 1979 revolution through a combination of smuggled parts and reverse-engineering, according to Western analysts and people who spoke about the trade following a nuclear deal later abandoned by Washington.

Its state-owned helicopter services and renovation company, widely known as PANHA, has presented indigenous models said by Western analysts to be based on re-engineered Bell aircraft, though the 212 is not one of the models said to be involved.

“Iran has a reputation for strong technical competence when it comes to aviation,” said Cirium Ascend analyst Paul Hayes.

As a domestic state flight, the accident does not automatically fall under global rules for air accident probes, with Middle East and aviation safety analysts saying there is little chance Iran would turn to outside help for such a politically sensitive matter on its own territory.

Iran sent black boxes to France following the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in 2020, but the role of the French BEA was limited to reading recorders and not investigation or analysis.

“I doubt whether there will be an investigation at all,” Hayes said, noting the sensitivity of the matter.

The crash comes at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises. Iran’s clerical rulers face international pressure over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and its deepening military ties with Russia during the war in Ukraine.

Under the Islamic Republic’s constitution, a new presidential election must be held within 50 days and Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Khamenei and Iran’s security services would seek to avoid any perception of vulnerability during the transition period.

“As a result, I’d expect a skittish, reactive Iran that may be more risk-averse in the near term but paradoxically more dangerous if it perceives itself on the defensive,” Maloney said.

Meanwhile, Iran proclaimed five days of mourning though the muted atmosphere revealed little of the spectacular public grief that has accompanied the deaths of other senior figures in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year history.

While government loyalists packed into mosques and squares to pray for Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, most shops remained open and the authorities made little effort to interrupt ordinary life.

A year after Raisi’s hardline government cracked down violently to end the biggest anti-establishment demonstrations since the 1979 revolution, opponents even posted furtive video online of people passing out sweets to celebrate his death.

Laila, a 21-year-old student in Tehran, told Reuters by phone that she was not saddened by Raisi’s death, “because he ordered the crackdown on women for hijab. But I am sad because even with Raisi’s death this regime will not change.”

Rights groups say hundreds of Iranians died in 2022-2023 demonstrations triggered by the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman arrested by morality police for violating the country’s strict dress codes.

The authorities’ handling of an array of political, social and economic crises have deepened the gap between the clerical rulers and society.

Supporters of the clerical establishment spoke admiringly of Raisi, a 63-year-old former hardline jurist elected in a tightly controlled vote in 2021.

“He was a hard working president. His legacy will endure as long as we are alive,” said Mohammad Hossein Zarrabi, 28, a member of the volunteer Basij militia in the holy Shi’ite city of Qom.

But there was little of the emotional rhetoric that accompanied the deaths of publicly revered figures, like Qasem Soleimani, a senior commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards killed by a US missile in 2020 in Iraq, whose funeral drew huge crowds of mourners, weeping with sorrow and rage.

For opponents of Iran’s clerical rulers at home and in exile, Raisi has been a hate figure since the 1980s when he was blamed for playing a leading role as a jurist in the execution of dissidents.

Iran has never acknowledged that mass executions took place; amnesty International says 5,000 Iranians, possibly more, were executed in the first decade after the revolution.

“I congratulate the families of the victims of the executions,” internet user Soran Mansournia posted in an online forum debating the legacy of Raisi’s death.

However, Narges, another user, lamented Raisi as having died “a martyr’s death” while many Iranians said they expected that Raisi’s death would have little impact on how the country would be ruled, with the establishment likely to replace him with another figure with similarly hardline views.

“Who cares. One hardliner dies, another takes over and our misery continues,” said Reza, 47, a shopkeeper in the central desert city of Yazd who did not give his full name fearing reprisals. “We’re too busy with economic and social issues to worry about such news.”