Flying a helicopter in fog can be a recipe for disaster — Kobe Bryant and now Iran’s president add to a string of deaths

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told IRNA, Iran’s state-run news agency, that the helicopter carrying Raisi and other senior Iranian officials was forced to make a “hard landing” Sunday but failed to offer details.

The search was “extremely difficult” because of darkness, dense fog, and rain, Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran’s Emergency Medical Services, said on Iranian state TV about 10 hours into the operation, per Bloomberg.

State TV said the helicopter crashed into a mountain. While there is no official statement on the cause, images of the crash site captured by ISNA, Iran’s state students’ news agency, showed heavy fog lingering over the area.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, flying in fog is challenging, even for the most experienced of pilots. “For pilots that are not as skilled, fog is an extremely dangerous and potentially deadly hazard,” it said.

Raisi’s helicopter crash follows a series of deadly helicopter and plane crashes in foggy weather conditions.

Last year, a helicopter carrying Ukraine’s interior minister crashed into a kindergarten in a foggy residential suburb of Kyiv, claiming his life and that of a dozen people, authorities said at the time, per The Associated Press.

India’s top military official, Gen. Bipin Rawat, and his wife perished with 11 other passengers in December 2021 after their helicopter flew unusually low and through heavy fog before crashing into a hillside in southern India, eyewitnesses told Reuters at the time.

In January 2020, Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crashed in foggy conditions while en route from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport, killing the NBA legend, his then-13-year-old daughter, the Orange Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli, and his family. The pilot of the helicopter most likely became disorientated amid fog, US safety investigators said.

Ten years earlier, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, the first lady, and 94 others died in a plane crash after pilots tried to land in thick fog with reduced visibility near the western Russian city of Smolensk, according to a final report by the country’s committee for Investigation on National Aviation Accidents.

In 1994, a Chinook Mk2 helicopter carrying 25 senior British intelligence experts crashed into the hillside on the Mull of Kintyre in southwestern Scotland after the pilot flew too fast and too low in foggy conditions, killing all passengers on board, the UK’s Defence Committee said at the time.

Raisi’s body and those of the other passengers who died in the helicopter crash are being transported to the city of Tabriz, where an autopsy will take place, followed by a first official state funeral on Tuesday, according to Al Jazeera.