Turkish drone failed to detect Iranian copter after crash: General Staff

Iran says that a Turkish Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that helped domestic teams during a massive search operation for President Ebrahim Raisi’s crashed helicopter over the weekend had failed to spot its location despite reports suggesting that it was the Turkish drone that first detected the wreckage of helicopter in mountainous regions in northwest Iran.

General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran said in a Wednesday statement that the Turkish UAV dispatched to Iran to help with search operations for president Raisi’s helicopter had lacked required to spot the exact location of the helicopter.

The statement said Iranian authorities accepted Turkey’s offer for helping with the search operation after it became known that Iranian drones equipped with SAR, a radar system that is able to detect objects from above thick clouds, were in an area in the north of the Indian ocean as part of major mission.

It said, however, that despite being equipped with night vision and thermal imaging devices, the Turkish drone was not able to detect the helicopter and returned to Turkey.