If they’re talking about a blizzard then the likely answer would be that some of them survived the crash but none of them survived the cold. This is probably why they were in such a hurry to find them.
'Experts react" to the impact of the Iranian president’s death.
Sounds like those in charge are busily working to damp down any expectations of domestic instability and keep the “revolution” chugging along.
Have you seen the crash site? I don’t think they talked to anyone on the phone.
Curious lie to make, then. Maybe it was a reference to the other helicopters?
That also doesn’t look like land that recently saw a blizzard.
My guess is that the posters in this thread who speculated that Iran may have wanted to buy time where it was unclear if Raisi was alive or not to head off a possible opportunistic coup are correct.
I didn’t hear anything about a blizzard, but I did see videos with extreme fog.
Have you ever noticed the USPS doesn’t own any airplanes? I read somewhere this is a kind of legacy that goes way back to the earliest days of aviation, when they did have planes delivering mail, and they were pushing the pilots to fly in bad weather. Lots of crashes and dead pilots ensued, and that was the end of that.
Interesting! Iran has 79 F-14 Tomcats. I guess some of them still fly. How the Iranians get parts is a real mystery. I suppose cannibalizing the rest. The US government at one time even ensured that static displays at airfields and museums and the VFW etc around the country had the components removed. I think they have some F-4s as well.
Those Tomcats are kept flying by cannibalization and some clever reverse engineering. Iran actually has a very technically competent aerospace sector, what they manage to do with all the heavy sanctions in place is pretty impressive.
Well right, but that’s why I’m skeptical of anyone trying to blame sanctions or lack of spare parts for the Late Unpleasantness.
I fully expect the Iranian government to do exactly that, regardless of if it had anything to do with the crash!
Reminds me of when I read a history of the island war in the Pacific. Marines on the ground swore they could tell whether an air support pilot was married or not by how low he made and how soon he pulled up after an attack run.
How do we know the lasers weren’t used to make the fog? 
I don’t see why, even if you are a tech wizard using cannibalized and/or reverse engineered tech is probably riskier than using new parts from the manufacturer.
So who’s the new president. Are they going to call an election?
The first vicepresident (some guy called Mohammed Mokhber) automatically becomes president, and then elections have to be called within 6 months. New presidential elections apparently have been arranged for June 28.
It is worth mentioning that it is unusual for the Head Of State & his Ministers to occupy the same aircraft, when there is more than one available.
Security, that is, the Revolutionary Guard, would make all flight arrangements.
So.
Inside job.
Do you have a cite that this is typical Iranian policy?
Plus, this was a minister; it’s not like he was flying with one of his twelve vice presidents.
Hm, yes, that does seem the simplest explanation. It’s easy to see how a game of fog-of-war multi-lingual Telephone could turn “two surviving aircraft” into “two survivors”, and that’d also account for being able to get an approximate but not exact position.
Meanwhile, to the pilots: If you (through whatever turn of events) find yourself flying close to the ground in dangerously-thick fog, wouldn’t the natural response to be to fly straight up? Ideally, that’d eventually get you above the fog, and at the very least get you further away from anything you could collide with. Any speculation on why this copter would be staying so close to the ground?