Old video of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi shared as visuals before his fatal helicopter crash

The viral video is from January 2024. It shows Iranian President’s visit to the Nimroud Dam in Firouzkoh city

Ebrahim Raisi and Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers and crew were killed in the helicopter crash near the Iranian-Azerbaijan border. The helicopter carrying the officials crashed in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, near the border with Azerbaijan. The crash occurred in the Dizmar forest between the cities of Varzaqan and Jolfa, and initial reports suggested that the helicopter was forced to make a hard landing due to bad weather and fog.
Following this incident, many posts and videos are going viral on social media. One such video is now going viral in which one showing Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi sitting inside an aircraft claiming that they were captured “minutes before” his helicopter crashed on 19 May.

The caption states, Video footage shows Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi on board the helicopter shortly before it made a hard landing in mountainous terrain due to foggy conditions in East Azerbaijan province.

But Fact Crescendo found the viral claim false. Let’s check the truth.

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Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by running a reverse image search on Google, and whose results led us to a post on Twitter uploaded on 18 January, 2024, with the caption, “This morning, the President’s aerial visit to the Nemroud Dam in Firouzkoh city”. The post included a video similar to the viral video, the footage is from the Iranian President’s aerial visit to the Nemroud Dam in Firouzkoh city.

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Upon further search, we found a report by the Public Relations Office of Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base, which stated that Ebrahim Raisi visited the national project of the Nimroud Reservoir Dam earlier this year in January, accompanied by the Minister of Energy and the Governor of Tehran in Firouzkoh city. 

During the visit, President Raisi was briefed on the latest progress of the dam project. The Nimroud Dam, a reservoir whose construction began in 2005, is located 18 km southwest of Firouzkoh city and two kilometers below the village of Saleh Bon.

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Thus, it is confirmed that the video does not show Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi just moments before the crash. 

According to a report by AP News, Iranian state TV had telecasted the video of Raisi’s recent visit to the Azerbaijan border, and the visuals did not show any snow-covered regions. In fact, according to the broadcast, the aerial footage of the area Raisi was out to visit showed much green cover and a river running across it. Thus, it is clear that the viral video is old and unrelated.

Conclusion-

Fact Crescendo found the viral claim made along with the images to be False. The viral video is from January 2024. It shows Iranian President’s visit to the Nimroud Dam in Firouzkoh city.