ISLAMABAD/MAN­SEHRA: Twelve army men were presumed dead on Thursday after a helicopter carrying a medical team on an evacuation mission crashed in a mountainous area near Mansehra.

The Russia-made Mi-17 helicopter was flying from Rawalpindi to Gilgit to evacuate a critically injured soldier. It crashed in Mohar area, about 40km from the district headquarters of Mansehra, at about 5pm.

Witnesses speaking over phone from the scene of the crash said they had heard a big explosion and reported it to police.

Officials said the crash apparently occurred beca­use of bad weather.

Those on board belonged to army’s relief mission

The place where the helicopter crashed is very away from the road network and one of the officials involved in the rescue operation said it took three hours to reach there.

Those on board the helicopter have been identified as pilots Maj Humayun and Maj Afzal; doctors Maj Shahzad, Maj Atif and Maj Usman; medical technicians and paramedics Naik Maqbool, soldier Rehmat­ullah, nursing assistant Amanullah; and helicopter crew Havaldar Munir Abbasi, Havaldar Asif, Naik Amir Saeed and soldier Waqar.

Officials said they would be able to complete the rescue operation by early Friday morning.

It was the second accident involving a military helicopter in a day. Earlier in the day, an Mi-17 belonging to PAF, which was involved in relief activities in Chitral, made a crash landing after developing a technical fault.

Before the two Mi-17 crashes on Thursday, there have been five accidents involving the Russia-made helicopter in the past decade, including one in Naltar three months ago in which eight people, among them three diplomats, were killed.

The army’s aviation wing has been using Mi-17 transport helicopters since late nineties. They are considered as the army aviation’s reliable workhorses. The fleet had been stressed because of the excessive use of these helicopters in counter-terrorism operations and relief activities.

The United States helped Pakistan refurbish and overhaul 22 of the Mi-17s.

According to an ISPR statement, “12 persons, including a team of army doctors, paramedics, pilots and other crew onboard an army helicopter that crashed near Mansehra on Thursday afternoon. The helicopter took off from Rawalpindi for Gilgit to evacuate a critically injured soldier. Apparently weather seems to be cause of the crash. Rescue operation is on.”

Mansehra DPO Najeebur Rehman said the rescue operation was under way and an emergency was declared in hospitals.

The helicopter caught fire soon after the crash. Local people rushed to the place, but could not rescue the soldiers because of raging flames. According to them, the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition.

Mohammad Banaras, a retired military man who was present at the site of the crash, said 12 bodies, including that of a child, had been retrieved from the wreckage of the copter.

Waris Khan, another eyewitness, said the helicopter was flying at a low speed and at low altitude, adding that a deafening blast was heard after the crash.

CRASH LANDING: The PAF helicopter which made the crash landing was engaged in relief operation in Khot, a flood-hit village in upper Chitral.

The people on board suffered minor injuries and were taken to Chitral Scouts Hospital. The DSP (headquarters) said sub-divisional police officer of Drosh, Zaffar Ahemd, was also travelling in the helicopter.

Nazir Ahmed, whose wife and three children were among the injured, told Dawn, quoting his spouse, that the helicopter’s tail hit a tree near a polo ground. It fell into an adjacent field and caught fire, but locals rushed to the place, extinguished the fire and rescued the passengers.

EARLIER CRASHES: Air accidents involving Mi-17 in Pakistan include a 2004 crash near Karak in which13 soldiers were killed; a 2007 crash near Muzzafarabad on the occasion of inauguration of development projects there; one in 2009 in Kurram Agency in which 41 people were killed; and another in Skardu in 2012 in which five people died.

Other than the Skardu crash, whose cause is still not known, the rest were said to have been caused because of technical reasons.

Zahiruddin from Chitral also contributed to the report

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2015

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