Twelve Army personnel, including five Majors, were martyred when a helicopter of Army Medical Corps crashed in Lassan Nawab area of Mansehra this evening.
Advertisement
Military sources confirmed the crash and said 12 people including a team of army doctors, paramedics, pilots and crew were killed.
Eight bodies were recovered from the site of the accident, said senior police official Nujeebur Rehman.
The aircraft was reportedly carrying relief items and aid supplies when it crashed in a hilly region around 170 kilometers (110 miles) north of the capital Islamabad.
He said the helicopter crashed over the mountains in the Mohar area of northern Mansehra district.
The Russian-built Mi-17, used by air forces across the world, has 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 ambassadors.
Recently, a copter belonging to the Pakistani air force crashed during a rescue operation in the flood-hit Chitral region, although no casualties were reported.
“Rescuers have so far retrieved 11 bodies from the wreckage”, he said, adding that the cause of the crash was unclear and that an investigation was underway.
Advertisement
The Afghan defence ministry said the military helicopter went down due to a technical fault in Shinkay, a district relatively free of insurgent activity in the otherwise volatile province of Zabul.
