[Oyk]

The Bell helicopter was bought by Iran in 1979. Its 45 years old. Because of Western sanctions, the aircraft could not be maintained to modern safety standards. The avionics are also nearly half a century old, unlike modern avionics that can fly aircraft purely by instrument (all pilots undergo fly by instrument training ie, they only look at the instruments to fly & land), the ill-fated helicopter was likely flown by pilot visibility through bad weather over the mountain range. Under normal circumstances, the flight would have been denied due to very poor visibility. But that these were VIPs on tight schedule.

Iran can't be so poor that the entire country could not even afford a new aircraft for their VVIPS and had to fly them on a 45-year-old bone shaker that's not maintained....and even if maintained,. come on! it's a technology of an era which was supposed to be over.

I suppose the idea of taking a helicopter was to keep their flight a secret, for security reasons, so a commercial or military plane was not used.  And Iran only had old helicopters, and they took the chance.

What can we say?  When your time is up, it's up.  Non negotiable.