Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian were declared dead

WORLD NEWS - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian were declared dead by the state news agency on Monday following a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border on Sunday night. Drone footage, released by the Red Crescent and shown on state media FARS News Agency, revealed the crash site on a "steep, wooded hillside, with little remaining of the helicopter beyond a blue and white tail". Raisi was travelling in Iran's East Azerbaijan province with a convoy of two other helicopters. The state TV reported a "hard landing" near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, approximately 600 km northwest of Tehran. 
A Turkish drone identified heat sources suspected to be the helicopter's wreckage and shared the coordinates with Iranian authorities, Anadolu news agency reported. The state news agency IRNA stated that President Raisi was flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter, which had to make an emergency landing due to "bad weather and fog". CNN's military analyst Cedric Leighton noted that difficulty in obtaining spare parts for the helicopter might have contributed to the crash. 
The helicopter, carrying Raisi, Abdollahian, and other officials, lost contact approximately 30 minutes into the flight, prompting a massive search and rescue operation. Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy Mehdi Safari managed to speak with Raisi via phone from the downed helicopter, Iranian state media reported. Pir-Hossein Kolivand, head of the Iranian Red Crescent, confirmed that 73 rescue teams, including army, Revolutionary Guard forces, and police units, were deployed near the village of Tavil in East Azerbaijan province