22 military personnel, including 3 officers, killed in PoK helicopter crash: Report

Islamabad, At least 22 military personnel, including three officers, were killed when an Mi-17 helicopter of Pakistan Army aviation crashed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, a media report said on Thursday.

The helicopter crashed "during take-off due to a technical fault" near Muzaffarabad in PoK on Wednesday, killing all personnel on board, the army said in a brief statement, without giving the number of those killed.

Citing a security official, BBC Urdu, however, reported that 22 personnel were killed in the crash, including one colonel and two majors.


The funeral prayers of the dead were held on Thursday before their bodies were sent to the respective areas of the victims for burial.

However, there is still no official word about the death toll or the identity of those killed in the crash.

It was not the first time that an Mi-17 helicopter had met with an accident.

In September last year, an Army Aviation Mi-17 helicopter crashed, killing five security personnel, including two majors.

In May 2015, seven people, including foreign ambassadors, were killed in a helicopter crash in Gilgit-Baltistan, north of Pakistan.