WSJ Misleading Raisi Helicopter Story
The Evidence Points to Bad Weather, Bad Piloting and Bad Security Procedures
The Wall Street Journal has published a story about the Iranian helicopter crash that killed Ebrahim Raisi, Iran's President, Iran's Foreign Minister and other officials. The story is based on the idea that American sanctions have made it nearly impossible for Iran to maintain its American helicopters which, the story implies, could have led to a possible technical failure and crash that killed the Iranian President.
To begin with there is zero evidence of any technical failure.
The helicopter was part of a three helicopter operation or task force. Two others made it back to their starting base: only the President's chopper did not. Raisi was flying on a Bell 212.
There is common agreement that the weather was terrible, well below normal flying minimums. One need only recall the tragic crash of Kobe Bryant's helicopter that killed the basketball star and his 13 year old daughter and six others. The weather was bad, the plane should never have taken off, the pilot got disoriented and crashed.
The FAA has published Distress and Urgency Procedures. If an aircraft has an emergency situation the pilot is instructed to immediately broadcast a MAYDAY.
The instructions read, in part: "The initial communication, and if considered necessary, any subsequent transmissions by an aircraft in distress should begin with the signal MAYDAY, preferably repeated three times. The signal PAN-PAN should be used in the same manner for an urgency condition." MAYDAY is the international radiotelephony distress signal. When repeated three times, it indicates imminent and grave danger and that immediate assistance is requested.PAN-PAN is the international radio-telephony urgency signal. When repeated three times, indicates uncertainty or alert followed by the nature of the urgency.
In an emergency the pilot is instructed to contact the nearest air traffic control facility. The FAA says: "Distress communications have absolute priority over all other communications, and the word MAYDAY commands radio silence on the frequency in use. Urgency communications have priority over all other communications except distress, and the word PAN-PAN warns other stations not to interfere with urgency transmissions."
There was no distress call in the Kobe Bryant crash in 2020 in Calabasas, California. Bryant's helicopter was 38 miles from John Wayne airport in Orange County, well within radio range. The cause of the crash was pilot error.
For the record, Raisi's helicopter was operating in a remote, mountainous area and possibly could have been out of range of Iranian or other ground air traffic stations. However, the Raisi helicopter was not out of range of the other two helicopters that were operating nearby on the same route as the Iranian President. They should have heard a MAYDAY or PAN-PAN emergency declaration.
There are many potential technical issues in helicopter operations. If there is an engine failure, for example, the pilot would seek to auto rotate the helicopter and attempt an emergency landing.
The WSJ article reports that the Raisi helicopter was overloaded and the engines were, therefore, under strain. Actually the chopper was not overloaded. There were nine passengers and crew combined. The helicopter can carry up to 15 persons.
The Bell 212 was not as old as the press has portrayed. According to the WSJ, Raisi’s helicopter was built in 1994 in Canada by Bell Helicopter Textron and sold to Iran's military. The chopper has two engines, side by side, and a single transmission. The engines are Pratt and Whitney model PT6T which also are made in Canada. The global average age of commercial helicopters is around 23 years. The Iranian President's helicopter was a little older, but not that much. In addition, the Raisi helicopter would have received extraordinary maintenance attention just as President Biden's helicopters do.
It isn’t clear whether Canada supplies spare parts to Iran.
Biden's helicopter is known as Marine One. There are two models, the Sikorsky VH-3D and the Sikorsky VH-60N. The VH-3Ds entered into service in 1978; the smaller VH-60N entered into service in 1987, making the 3D's 46 years old and the 60's at 37 years. A new Presidential helicopter is replacing the older fleet.
There are many reasons for a helicopter to fail in flight. The most common problem is tail rotor failure. But technical failures are not the big reason for helicopter accidents. More often than not, either it is poor maintenance or pilot error.
There is no evidence that the pilot ever made a distress call. It was only when the Raisi helicopter did not show up that the possibility of a mishap was known. In itself, this is a little surprising since one would have expected all three choppers to be in constant touch with each other, especially in remote areas. The top priority of any state is protecting its chief executive and virtually every serious country has security procedures and special equipment to help assure safety. Indeed, the US has supplied self defense equipment to foreign potentates, even enemies, as the US did for Saddam Hussein.
In other words, while we may never have a real accounting for how the crash happened, everything points to a crash caused by pilot error in terribly bad weather. It is not uncommon in harsh weather for pilots to get disoriented. Everything points to the fact that this helicopter was flown into the side of a mountain.
While the WSJ laments the lack of spare parts for American helicopters, Iran can buy all the VIP and military helicopters it wants from Russia. In fact, as the WSJ notes, Raisi also was known to fly on a Russian-made helicopter. Apparently the Iranians liked the Bell helicopters more than the Russian ones, suggesting that keeping up maintenance was not an issue.
Iran has an extensive smuggling system and is able to get spare parts for American fighter jets and other US military equipment. Getting helicopter parts is not a big problem in the Black Market. Not only that, but Iran gets tons of supplies for its drones, missiles and other weapons from the US and Europe through the Black Market mechanism. Getting parts for Raisi's chopper was, for the Iranians, a piece of cake.
The fact that the WSJ would imply that US sanctions helped kill Raisi is misleading and suggests that the US had a hand in Raisi’s death. All the evidence points to a dangerous decision to fly in very bad weather, pilot error, a poor security procedures for a Presidential-level mission.
.
Historically Persian politics is rife with intrigues and skullduggery and much takes place that is inscrutable for outsiders; there may indeed be more to this story than meets the eye but we are unlikely to know it. Not curious that of the 3 choppers in the group the most important one went down? I also saw the Twitter account from quoted in the Cradle link the next day. Reminds me somewhat of the Progozhin "fooling around with hand grenades and champagne" story...
There seems to be a cluster of violent events as of late... the Fico assassination attempt (with total security detail fail), coups in the Sahel, color revolution in Georgia. These superimposed on the Russian breakthrough in Ukraine, and Gaza slaughter. Color me stupid but something smells somewhat fishy here...more than coincidence.
Nicely written article, essentially all true. Minor error: The Bell 212 has 2 engines, side by side, not one on top of the other. This helicopter is essentially the same as a US military UH-1N. Each Pratt & Whitney PT6T engine drives a common transmission. If one engine fails, the other can maintain max power (900 hp) for at least 30 minutes. Adequate time to cope with most emergencies and land, unless you are over water. Comment about why Raisi may have preferred the Bell over Russian helicopters. I have flown both US and Russian helicopters. The Bell helicopters operate with much lower vibration levels than the Russian helicopters. The "standard" Russian helicopter would be a Mi-8 or Mi-17. The vibration in the Russian helicopters is particularly noticeable in the transition from slow flight to faster speeds and from faster speeds to slow speeds, known as "going through translational lift." Robert P. Ryan, Airline Transport Pilot - Rotorcraft-Helicopter, CFI &CFII - Helicopter. Retired US Army Aviator.