Why did 2nd guard of Iranian President leave the ill-fated helicopter at the last moment?

Shafaq News / There are still lingering questions surrounding the helicopter incident that resulted in the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage.

Raisi, aged 63, perished in a helicopter crash on May 19 along with seven others, including Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian.

Initially, reports indicated nine passengers aboard, including two of Raisi's personal guards. However, following the discovery of the helicopter wreckage, the number of bodies found was eight.

Four days later, the identity of the second personal guard was revealed through social media posts, where Javad Mehrabil was seen mourning at the back during Raisi's memorial service.

Reports mentioned that his chief, Mehdi Mousavi, took him out at the last minute from the President's helicopter to one of the two other planes flying in the convoy that day.

After Mousavi's death in the crash, his father told Iranian state television that he knew his son would not return from this trip.

"On the night before the trip, he visited us. He said goodbye and got into his car but returned and stayed for 20 minutes. Then he left, but after a short distance by car, he returned again and spent another 10 minutes with us. When he bid farewell the third time, he kissed his mother's and my feet," the father said on camera.

"That is when I knew he was going and would never come back."

The personal guards were members of a special unit under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, established in 1979 to replace the untrusted Iranian military.

Their unit, known as "Ansar al-Mahdi," is responsible for the personal security of senior regime officials.

To achieve this, they carry specially equipped phones not only for secure communication but also for location tracking. The device carried by Mousavi should have been useful in pinpointing the location of the helicopter, which crashed in a rugged area not far from Iran's border with Azerbaijan.

However, it took rescue teams 16 hours to reach the crash site. According to Time magazine, the transceiver aboard the plane carrying senior officials was reportedly turned off as a routine matter, fearing tracking by hostile governments.

When the helicopter crashed on a wooded hilltop in northwest Iran, one passenger survived long enough to recover the cell phone of the pilot, attempted to describe the area, and died while awaiting rescue.

There are still other questions that can be answered through technical investigation.

Raisi's chief of staff, who was flying in another helicopter, said shortly before its disappearance, he ordered the president's helicopter and other helicopters to rise above the clouds clinging to the hills.

The other two planes did so, but the sound of the president's helicopter was not heard again. Some information remains interesting, although open to interpretation in any direction. For example, Iranians put the story of Mousavi's father as evidence of a conspiracy, unprecedented in a system known for its mystery and cruelty, according to Time magazine.

Raisi's elderly mother increased these speculations when she appeared in a video, visibly upset and calling for the killing "of those who killed him."