Shortly before embarking on a fatal helicopter ride on Sunday, May 19 Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, and his delegation of senior officials held a communal prayer. Someone suggested having lunch, but the president demurred, saying he was in a hurry to reach his next destination. Mr. Raisi boarded the aircraft and sat by a window. The foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, stopped for a picture with a crowd that was swarming the tarmac. He smiled and placed one hand over his chest while holding a brown briefcase in the other. Around 1 p.m., a convoy of three helicopters took off from a helipad on Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, with the president’s craft in the middle. But about half an hour into the flight, the president’s helicopter vanished. Calls to passengers on the president’s helicopter were met with silence until one answered. “I don’t know what happened,” Ayatollah Mohammad-Ali Al-Hashem said, sounding distraught. “I am not feeling well.” Two hours later, his phone, too, went silent. Mr. Raisi, 63, and Mr. Amir Abdollahian were traveling back from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan after inaugurating a joint dam project when their helicopter went down in a remote and mountainous area around 1 p.m. local time on Sunday, according to state media. Search and rescue teams battled rain and heavy fog to scour the mountains and dense forest for more than 10 hours, looking for the crash site. The authorities called off the aerial search at one point because of the weather, dispatching elite commandos of the Revolutionary Guards and others on foot.

Rescue teams’ vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in East Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024

Rescue operations continue following the crash of the helicopter carrying Iran's President in mountainous Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran,Monday, May 20, 2024

Rescue vehicles are seen following the helicopter crash in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran

At the first sign of light rescue team members search for the wreckage of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi after it crashed in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20.

Rescue team members at the scene of a crash of the helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20

The wreckage of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, May 20, 2024

Rescue team members works following at the scene. of a crash of the helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20

Rescue team members works following at the scene. of a crash of the helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20

Rescue team members works following at the scene. of a crash of the helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20

Rescue team members carry a body following the crash of a helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20.

Rescuers with a body from the fallen helicopter that was carrying President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaqan, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran, May 20.

Rescuers recover bodies at the crash site of a helicopter transporting Iran's President, his Foreign Minster, and others in a fog-covered mountainous area of Varzaghan in northwestern Iran on May 20, 2024. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was declared dead on May 20, 2024