After news broke that President Ibrahim Raisi’s helicopter had crashed in northwest Iran on Sunday afternoon, the emotions expressed by most Iranians on social media were shock and disbelief.
Speculation immediately began to circulate online as Iranian state media reported limited and sometimes contradictory information about the incident in their usual motions.
Some wondered if Raisi and the seven people on board the helicopter, as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdullahian and several other senior officials, were dead.
Were government officials hesitant to make the announcement or were they, like the general public, in the dark about their fate? They asked. “He’s definitely dead,” one person wrote on X, earlier on Twitter.
“They’re buying time so they can manage the crisis.”
There is also speculation as to the cause of the crash, which took place in a remote mountainous area during heavy fog and rain.
Some asked if it was simply an accident — the latest in Iran’s long history of accidents — or the result of an attack or sabotage.
“You can only find a few working planes in the whole country,” another X user posted.
“Remember when the hardliners said buying new planes and helicopters was extravagant and wasteful?”
But by Sunday evening, there was a definite change in public mood.
