Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi joins list of world leaders who died in aviation disasters
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash, is not the first political leader to perish in an aviation accident.
From Pakistan’s President General Zia ul Haq to Poland’s President Lech Kaczyński, numerous political figures have lost their lives in air crashes.
Here are some of the most notable ones:
Pakistan’s President Zia ul-Haq (1988)
Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq met his tragic end on August 17, 1988, when the plane he was aboard crashed near Bahawalpur, in the eastern part of the country.
Polish President Lech Kaczyński (2010)
On April 10, 2010, Polish President Lech Kaczyński and several high-ranking political and military officials were died when a Tupolev 154 carrying 96 individuals
crashed in western Russia.
Tragically, there were no survivors. The crash was attributed to adverse weather conditions, compounded by mistakes made by the Polish pilots and Russian air traffic controllers.
Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski (2004)
Macedonia’s President Boris Trajkovski, along with eight others, lost their lives on February 26, 2004, when their plane crashed while preparing to land in dense fog in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar.
Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda & Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi (1994)
On April 6, 1994, a Falcon 50 carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali by at least one missile.
This attack is regarded as the catalyst for the genocide of Tutsis, which resulted in the deaths of at least 800,000 individuals, as reported by the United Nations.
Mozambique President Samora Machel (1986)
On October 19, 1986, Mozambique’s inaugural president, Samora Machel, perished when his Tupolev 134 crashed in the northeast region of South Africa.
UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold (1961)
On either September 17 or 18, 1961, a plane transporting the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld crashed in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, during his efforts to negotiate a ceasefire between conflicting factions in the former Belgian Congo. The cause of the crash remains undetermined.