E-Paper
US chopper crashes in Afghanistan; 10 dead
A helicopter with nine US-led coalition personnel aboard crashed while conducting combat operations in Kunar province.
There were no survivors after a US helicopter involved in an anti-Taliban combat operation crashed in eastern Afghanistan with 10 soldiers on board, the US military said on Saturday.
"The remains of 10 soldiers were on board the aircraft that crashed last night. There were no survivors," said a spokeswoman for the US-led military coalition, Lieutenant Tamara Lawrence.
She did not release the nationalities of the troops on board the Chinook that came down late on Friday in a mountainous area of eastern Kunar province near the border with Pakistan.
"Recovery efforts will continue today and the scene is secured by coalition forces," Lawrence said. "An investigation team, security elements and a mortuary team will be going to the scene today."
The coalition said the incident was not the result of enemy action, rejecting a claim by the Taliban waging an insurgency that they had brought down the Chinook.
"The crash occurred in a very mountainous terrain and the landing zone was very difficult. It was a mountain-top landing zone," Lawrence said earlier.
"There were various weather factors that could have come into play... there were high winds. We are investigating any possible causes for the accident but there were no enemy actions detected at the scene."
