Fact Check: Pics from 2020 falsely linked to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s chopper crash

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, along with the country’s foreign minister and several others, were found dead on May 20, following a helicopter accident in a foggy, mountainous area in the northwest of the country.

Against this backdrop, several images have been making the rounds on social media. The accompanying claim suggests that the pictures show the crash site.

“WW3 ALERT… NEW PICTURE RELEASED OF HELICOPTER CRASH THAT KILLED IRAN PRESIDENT EBRAHIM RAISI,” wrote an X premium user, Matt Wallace, while sharing (archive) an image. “First Image from the Site of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s Helicopter Crash, everything appears to be Burned,” wrote another X user while sharing (archive) the same image.

Sharing (archive) multiple images, Sulaiman Ahmed, another X user wrote, “BREAKING: MANY BODIES OF THOSE DIED IN IRAN PRESIDENT RAISI HELICOPTER CRASH HAVE BEEN BURNT AND CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the images depict the site of a training plane crash in 2020, not Iranian President Raisi’s helicopter crash.

After conducting a reverse image search, we found that all images except one—the depiction of a crashed blue plane with white wings—were published by Tehran-based website Rokna Press on April 22, 2020.

The website states that the images depict the wreckage of a two-seater training plane belonging to the police force, which crashed in the Salmanshahr district of Iran’s Mazandaran province in 2020.

We also found the images published by another website, Jahan News, in May 2020. This website also states that the photos depict the wreckage of a training plane flying from Bishe Kola to Tehran. It added that the aircraft crashed near Mutalaq in the Salmanshahr district.

Hence, we conclude that these images do not show the site of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter crash. The claim is false.