ISLAMABAD, 6 August 2004 — A Pakistan Army helicopter crashed near Karak district in Pakistan’s North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), yesterday killing all thirteen men on board, officials said.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told media in Islamabad three officers were among the dead in the MI-17 chopper crash, which occurred at around 9:30 a.m. local time in the mountains around the district.
“The pilot of the helicopter contacted the air base minutes before the crash and said he was going to make an emergency landing because of some technical fault,” Sultan said immediately after the communication broke down. He gave no other details.
Earlier reports said at least four charred bodies were recovered from the chopper. Military checkpoints and base camps in recent days have been frequently attacked by rockets in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border as news reports yesterday said security forces were preparing to conduct “snap raids” to arrest suspected terrorists.
Meanwhile, a Mirage fighter aircraft of the Pakistan Air Force crashed in the southwestern province of Balochistan yesterday but the pilot ejected safely, an official statement said. The aircraft was on a “routine operational training mission” when it crashed about 45 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital Quetta. “The crash apparently occurred due to technical malfunction,” the statement said adding no loss of civilian life or property on ground had been reported. An inquiry has been ordered to determine the cause of accident, it said.
