Turkish drone locates Iranian president's helicopter

In a swift and coordinated rescue operation, a Turkish Akinci drone located the wreckage of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, providing critical information to Iranian authorities.

After receiving information that the helicopter carrying Raisi and other top officials had crashed, the Turkish Foreign Ministry forwarded to the National Defense Ministry a request for a night-vision search and rescue helicopter at 8 p.m. on May 19, according to security sources.

Following this, a Cougar-type helicopter immediately moved from Türkiye’s Diyarbakir province to Van province bordering Iran.

The National Defense Ministry received approval from the Presidential Office at 10:20 p.m. for the use of a drone abroad.

Upon Iran's acceptance of the offer, the drone took off from Türkiye’s Batman province at 11:30 p.m. and reached the crash site at 00:45 a.m. to begin its operation.

During the reconnaissance and surveillance at the crash site, the information obtained was shared with Iranian authorities in real time.

At 02:36 a.m., the wreckage was spotted, and the coordinates of the wreckage were sent to the Iranian authorities. Continuous coordination was maintained with all state institutions and Iranian authorities through embassies.

Having successfully completed its mission, Akinci returned to Turkish airspace at 6:45 a.m. on May 20.

Baykar chairman Selcuk Bayraktar described Sunday's search as a “high-risk” mission, when speaking to Turkey’s CNN Turk television.