No, this video does not show the Iranian president before his fatal helicopter crash
A video circulating on social media falsely claims to show the final moments of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi before his helicopter crash in northwest Iran on May 19. The footage was in fact taken in January 2024 during a visit to a dam in Tehran province, which is around 850 km from the crash site.
If you only have a minute:
A video shared on social media on May 19 claims to show the last moments of President Ebrahim Raisi before his helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan province, northwest Iran.
The video is actually from January 2024. It was filmed by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) during a visit by Raisi to a dam near Firuzkuh in Tehran province.
The fact check, in detail:
Iranian state media confirmed President Raisi’s death on Monday, May 20, saying there was “no sign of life” on board the helicopter that had been transporting Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as they returned from the inauguration of a dam on the Azeri-Iranian border.
A video published on May 19 and viewed around 200,000 times on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook claimed to show "the last appearance of the Iranian President Raisi before his helicopter crashes in East Azerbaijan".
Open-source analysts had precisely geolocated the May 19 helicopter crash site. It was in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, near the city of Varzaqan, 852 km from Firuzkuh, where the original video was filmed, according to Google Maps.
