ANKARA: The helicopter that crashed while carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister on Sunday did not have its signal system turned on or did not possess such a system, Turkish Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Monday.

Uraloglu told reporters that since Iran fell within Turkey’s area of responsibility for emergency response, authorities had checked for a signal from the helicopter upon hearing news that it had crashed.

“But unfortunately, (we think) most likely the signal systemwas turned off or that the helicopter did not have that signalsystem, because those signals would definitely see thosesignals, but they didn’t (show this time),” he said.