PARIS, (France) : Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, whose death in a helicopter crash was announced yesterday (May 20), is the latest major political leader to die in an aviation accident. Here are some of the best known among the others:

On February 6, former Chilean president Sebastian Pinera (in office from 2010-2014, and then 2018-2022), died in a helicopter accident at Lago Ranco, a vacation site 920 kilometres (570 miles) south of the capital Santiago.

On April 10, a Tupolev 154 with 96 people aboard including Polish President Lech Kaczynski and senior political and military figures, crashed while trying to land in thick fog at an airport near Smolensk in western Russia.

There were no survivors. The crash was attributed to bad weather as well as errors by the Polish pilots and Russian air traffic controllers.

On July 30, 2005, John Garang, the former separatist rebel leader who became vice-president of South Sudan after its creation, died when his helicopter crashed in Sudan on a flight back from Uganda.

On February 26, 2004, Macedonia's president Boris Trajkovski was killed along with eight others when his plane crashed as it prepared to land in thick fog in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar.

On April 6, 1994, a Falcon 50 transporting Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali by at least one missile.

The attack is considered the spark that unleashed the genocide of Tutsis that left at least 800,000 dead, according to the United Nations.

On August 17, 1988, Pakistan's president Zia ul-Haq was among the victims of a plane accident near Bahawalpur, in the country's east.

On October 19, 1986, Mozambique's first president Samora Machel died when his Tupolev 134 crashed in the north-east of South Africa.

  - AFP