we start this hour with some breaking news out of Iran State television says there's been an accident involving a helicopter that might have been carrying president r e well with me is Sebastian Usher the BBC World Services Middle East analyst so Sebastian this news only just coming into us what do we know well we're getting um information from various Iranian sources of the semiofficial news agencies uh that provide I mean a pretty good uh understanding of what happens in Iran but isn't necessarily with full official confirmation so what we've heard is that the president RI was traveling in a convoy we're hearing this from at least one Iranian source of three helicopters over East aaban and that one helicopter had to make what was described as a rough a hard Landing now that helicopter it has emerged over the past half an hour or so seems almost certainly to have had president RI on board not only President RI but also the Iranian foreign minister on board now this is an area where uh there it's mountainous it's wooded and we're hearing from these sources but there's particularly bad weather conditions there but it's foggy so a major rescue operation is underway as you'd expect but at the moment there's no clarity about what has happened to this helicopter two of the helicopters on at least one Iranian Source are reported to have arrived safely uh at their destination so there is obviously huge speculation that's going on um I mean as as far as I can see at the moment there is emerging official confirmation that President RI was on board that helicopter but what has happened to that helicopter what state it's in uh we don't know as yet and would it be usual for president Ry to be using helicopters to travel around I mean he he he's a president he he he does travel widely um it is uh not something that is unusual for him to be making his trips there there's there's no kind of issue about him being able to travel in any sense uh if this was the supreme leader ham that that would be a different case but president R is very much the outward-looking face of the Iranian uh government so he is you know often traveling to different locations around the world whether it's by helicopter or by plane so that in itself is Not Unusual Sebastian Usha thank you very much for the latest and of course if there are any developments we will bring them to you on that breaking story here on BBC News and you can get more on that on the BBC News website