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Twelve Killed In Pakistani Army Helicopter Crash


Volunteers walk down a mountain carrying the remains of victims after a helicopter crashed near Mansehra, in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 7.
Volunteers walk down a mountain carrying the remains of victims after a helicopter crashed near Mansehra, in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 7.

Twelve people were killed August 6 when an army helicopter crashed in northwest Pakistan, officials said.

"All the 12 people in the chopper are presumed dead. They all belong to the army. They were going to Gilgit to rescue an injured army man," a senior military official said, adding that the dead include army doctors, paramedical staff, pilots, and crew.

Eleven of the bodies were recovered soon after the accident from the crash site near Mansehra town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, around 170 kilometers north of Islamabad, a police official said.

The charred corpses were burnt beyond recognition, he said.

The accident came only hours after a Pakistani air force helicopter crashed in the flood-hit district of Chitral, although no casualties were reported.

Both incidents involved Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters, used by air forces across the world but which have had a patchy safety record in recent years.

In May, an Mi-17 army helicopter crashed at a holiday resort in the picturesque hills of Gilgit, killing seven people, including two foreign ambassadors.

Based on reporting by dpa and AFP
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