Fact Check: Old video of Iranian president Raisi falsely peddled as visuals before fatal chopper crash

Hyderabad: A video of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi chatting with fellow passengers in an aircraft is circulating on social media. The accompanying claim suggests that it shows visuals before his fatal helicopter crash.

On May 20, Iranian president Raisi, along with the country’s foreign minister and several others, died in a helicopter crash.

An account, Diario del Pueblo, shared the video on Instagram and Threads (archive) with the caption, “The leaked video showing a helicopter flight of the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, an hour before his accident. (Translated from Spanish)”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false as the video is from January 2024.

Upon conducting a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found it posted by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) – Iran’s official news agency – on X account on January 18, 2024. The accompanying caption states that the video shows Raisi’s aerial visit to the Nemroud Dam in Firouzkoh City. (Archive)

Next, we searched using specific keywords and found reports from Mehran News and the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) dated January 2024. The reports detailed President Raisi’s visit to the Nemroud Reservoir Dam national project, which took place earlier this year in January. He was accompanied by the minister of Energy and the governor of Tehran during his visit.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Iranian state TV aired aerial footage of Ebrahim Raisi on a visit to the country’s northeast before his helicopter reportedly suffered a ‘hard landing.’ However, it does not show the visual as seen in the viral clip.

Upon analysing the viral clip, we saw it showed snow-covered mountains. However, the news footage showed green covers with a river across it.