2022 Panama helicopter crash video falsely shared as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s crash

The viral video old and is from Panama. It is unrelated to Iran President’s helicopter crash.

On 19 May, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, and several other officials were killed in a helicopter crash in the country’s East Azerbaijan region. Raisi has been buried in his hometown of Mashhad, four days after being killed in a helicopter crash. Following this, a video purporting to show Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash is going viral on social media. 

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 similar video uploaded on YouTube on 22 August, 2022. As per the video’s title, this helicopter crash incident is from the South American country Panama. This makes it clear that the video is not recent.

The description states “A helicopter crashed in Panama with presidential candidate Dimitri Flores on board. Everyone survived.”

Upon further search, we found a video report of 9 News Australia that contains the viral video. According to the video report, this incident happened in Panama’s jungles in August 2022. There were 6 people on board the helicopter at the time of the crash, including a Panama politician, Dmitri Flores. They were all rescued alive but suffered injuries. As per the video’s description box “2024 presidential candidate Dimitri Florez and six others are lucky to be alive after dramatic video emerged of the moment their helicopter crash-landed in the deep jungle of Panama.”

We also came across a Facebook post carrying the same viral video with the caption, “Video showing the crash of the Eurocopter AS.350BA,  #Panama registration HP1806RK (C/N 2030), on a mountain in the Jaramillo area, near the town of Boquete, in the Chiriquí province. The six souls on board survived.”

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Taking account of these details, we can understand that the video is old and has no connection to Iranian President’s helicopter crash.

Conclusion-

Fact Crescendo found the viral claim made along with the image to be False. The viral video is from Panama and it dates back to 2022. It is unrelated to Iran President’s helicopter crash.