Iranian state television broadcast what it claimed to be the last phone call between Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian and the pilot of the helicopter, Captain Tahir Mostafi, who was flying the late President Ebrahim Raisi's helicopter before it crashed last Sunday in northwest Iran. According to the video, Mehrabian called the presidential helicopter's pilot, and Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, the representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tabriz, answered, who was also on board the presidential helicopter.
In the conversation, Mehrabian asks, "Can you hear my voice, are you okay, where are the others, are you alone?" However, there is no evidence of the conversations taking place on the other end of the line, and the video only shows Mehrabian talking with someone over the phone.
Gholam Hossein Ismaili, head of Ebrahim Raisi's office, claimed days after the helicopter crash, in a television program, that he had called Al-Hashem several times. Questions remain regarding the crash of Raisi's helicopter and why it did not return to Tabriz, the center of East Azerbaijan Province, by land.
