Iran: Army sees no foul play in Raisi helicopter crash

A preliminary report published by Iran's armed forces general staff late on Thursday states that the May 19 helicopter crash that killed the president, his foreign minister and six other people was most likely an accident. 

Ebrahim Raisi was laid to rest on Thursday in his home city, Mashhad. 

What we know about the crash 

The helicopter carrying Raisi, Hossein Amirabdollahian, and others caught fire on impact after going down in rough terrain while in transit to the northern Iranian city of Tabriz, according to Iranian forces.

Investigators stated that they had found no entry holes of any kind in the helicopter's wreckage.

In-flight communication between the helicopter and control tower was unsuspicious, and there were no deviations from the scheduled flight route.

DW debunks space laser theory  

A viral post by a user on X (formerly Twitter) this week claimed that Raisi's helicopter was brought down by a space-based weapon firing off a laser beam. The now-deleted X post, which had generated more than 29 million views, claimed to show an image of the helicopter catching fire in mid-air and going down.

DW's Fact Check team, meanwhile, has identified the claim and the image as false. While laser weapons can destroy flying targets from tens of kilometers away, it is impossible to shoot down a helicopter from as far as space, according to DW. 

sb/wd (AFP, Reuters)