Details emerge of crash as crowd attends funeral for Iran's president

The first of several funeral ceremonies began in Iran for president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other victims of Sunday's helicopter crash, as details emerged of the final moments before the accident.

Thousands of government supporters flocked to the ceremony in the north-western city of Tabriz on Tuesday to bid farewell, state media reported.

Tabriz is the capital of East Azerbaijan province, where the accident occurred.

Videos shared by Iranian news agencies showed crowds of people under cloudy skies and an open lorry carrying coffins adorned with flowers driving slowly through the streets.

The crowds jostled around the lorry as people tried to lay their hands on the coffin belonging to Raisi and other victims. According to the Tasnim news agency, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi was in the crowd.

Further mourning ceremonies are planned in the religious stronghold and pilgrimage city of Qom as well as in the capital Tehran.

A military band played as the coffins arrived at Tehran airport for transfer to Qom, as could be seen in a video published by IRNA news agency. The bodies were carried over a red carpet.

A number of traffic restrictions were imposed in the capital Tehran because of the funeral procession.

Raisi and Amirabdollahian were killed in a helicopter crash with seven other occupants. They went down in dense cloud in the mountains while travelling back from a meeting with Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan.

On Tuesday, an official flying in another aircraft who was part of the delegation described the conditions before the crash as clear.

The helicopter that crashed was one of three heading back from the meeting and Raisi's chief of staff was travelling in one of the other ones.

"The weather was cloudless, completely clear and bright," Gholam-Hossein Esmaili told the state broadcaster on Tuesday.

But clouds emerged after around half an hour in the air and the pilot of the presidential helicopter, which was flying in the centre of the fleet, ordered the aircraft to rise higher into the air. Shortly afterwards, the pilot of Esmaili's helicopter realized that Raisi's helicopter was no longer among them.

"Why are we turning back?" the chief of staff asked. The co-pilot replied that the president's helicopter was missing and that the crew assumed it had made an emergency landing.

The two other helicopters spent several minutes circling over the area before their radio communications were interrupted.

The two aircraft then landed near a copper mine shortly afterwards due to the poor visibility.

Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered five days of national mourning. Tasnim reported that a nationwide holiday has been set for Wednesday.

Another funeral procession is planned in Tehran, and a ceremony in honour of the crash victims is also to take place in the afternoon in the presence of high-ranking foreign dignitaries.

Raisi is to be buried on Thursday in the Shiite centre of his home city of Mashhad, at the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth imam of Shia Islam.

In Iran and abroad, supporters of the government mourned Raisi's death, while critics spoke of his government's suppression.