Helicopter with Iranian President and Foreign Minister down

[putnam6]

The helicopter he was flying on was grounded in several countries.  They built 711 of them, and they had over 430 accidents since it first flew in 1968.  Not all of those were write offs, but a vast majority of them were.  Add in fog and mountains, and it's about 99% certain this was CFIT or a mechanical failure.

A "hard landing" is any landing that doesn't immediately turn the helicopter into its component pieces and kill everyone on board.  There can be a fire or an explosion afterwards, it's just saying that it didn't immediately destroy it.

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Two locations were identified by the Turkish UAV as possible crash sites.  It appears that it may have hit the side of a mountain while in a valley, and rolled down the mountain towards the bottom of the valley.

Hard landing ...Perhaps in military parlance, but I'd almost guarantee the Iranian media used "hard landing" to down play the seriousness of the event.