WHO WAS ON BOARD THE HELICOPTER AND WHERE WAS IT GOING?
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The helicopter was carrying President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Raisi was returning on Sunday after travelling to Iran's border with Azerbaijan to inaugurate a dam with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev when the crash happened in the Dizmar forest in Iran's East Azerbaijan province under circumstances that remain unclear.
IRNA said the crash killed eight people in all, including three crew members aboard the Bell helicopter, which Iran purchased in the early 2000s.
HOW DID THE SEARCH OPERATION GO?
Iranian officials have said the mountainous, forested terrain and heavy fog impeded search and rescue operations, which began on Sunday.
The president of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir-Hossein Koulivand, said 40 search teams were on the ground despite "challenging weather conditions".
Because of the bad weather, it was "impossible to conduct aerial searches" via drones, the official said, according to IRNA.
HOW WAS THE CRASH SITE FOUND?
In the early hours of Monday, Turkish authorities released drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they "suspected to be wreckage of a helicopter".
The co-ordinates listed in the footage placed the fire some 20Km south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.
Video released by IRNA showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range.
Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: "There it is, we found it."
Shortly afterwards, state TV reported in an on-screen scrolling text: "There is no sign of life from people on board."
HOW WILL RAISI'S DEATH AFFECT IRAN?
Raisi was seen as a protege to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a potential successor for his position within the country's Shi'ite theocracy.
Under the Iranian constitution, if a president dies, the country's first vice-president - in this case, Mohammad Mokhber - would become president.
Khamenei has publicly assured Iranians there would be "no disruption to the operations of the country" as a result of the crash.
Australian Associated Press
