Akıncı, the uncrewed aerial vehicle (UCAV) of Türkiye’s Baykar company, made it to the list of the most monitored aircrafts on popular flight tracking app FlightRadar24 after it was deployed to assist in finding the crashed helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Soon after its deployment, along with a Cougar helicopter also dispatched by Türkiye, more than 220,000 aviation enthusiasts and those interested in developments regarding the crash flocked to the app. As it circled the Iranian skies, Akıncı drew more than 2.5 million individuals to the app.
Despite adverse weather, Akıncı managed to detect the crash site of the helicopter carrying the Iranian President, Foreign Minister and other officials.
Turkish authorities early Monday released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be the wreckage of a helicopter.” The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.
