13 military personnel, 3 contractors among dead
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:09 a.m. ET April 7, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. military helicopter returning from a mission smashed into the southern Afghan desert Wednesday, killing 13 American military personnel and three U.S. government contractors in the deadliest military crash since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, the military said.
Two other U.S. service members were unaccounted for, spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said Thursday. The nationalities of the three contractors were not immediately available.
The CH-47 Chinook was returning to the U.S. base at Bagram from a mission in the militant-plagued south when it went down near Ghazni city, 80 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.
Bad weather suspected
“Indications are it was bad weather and that there were no survivors,” Moore said. An Afghan official said there were no signs the craft was shot down.
Moore said the transport helicopter was returning from a “routine mission” when controllers lost radio contact. A second Chinook made it safely back to the sprawling base north of Kabul.
Associated Press Television News footage showed dozens of Afghan security forces and officials scurrying round burning wreckage. Strong winds that had whipped thick dust into the darkened sky fanned the flames.
Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the chief of police in Ghazni, said the helicopter came down at about 2:30 p.m. near a brick factory 3 miles outside the city and burst into flames. U.S. troops rushed to cordon the area to look for any survivors.
Sarjang said there was no sign that enemy fire brought it down.
According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, at least 122 American soldiers had died before Wednesday’s incident in and around Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war on terrorism, began after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Accidents have proven almost as deadly as attacks from Taliban-led insurgents, including a string of helicopter crashes and explosions caused by mines and munitions left over from the country’s long wars.
Other recent deaths
Most recently, four U.S. soldiers died when a land mine exploded under their vehicle south of Kabul on March 26.
Last November, six Americans — three civilian crew members and three U.S. soldiers — died when their plane crashed in the Hindu Kush mountains. The military’s last fatal helicopter crash occurred a month earlier when a pilot was killed in the west of the country.
About 17,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan battling a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency focused on the south and east. The top U.S. commander here, Lt. Gen. David Barno, told AP the size of the U.S. force would be reviewed after Afghan parliamentary elections in September.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
sad news indeed....maybe they mean the deadliest crash in afghanistan, cuz i remember a transport chopper in iraq went down a couple months ago that killed like 20 soldiers...it's scary stuff, my bro's escorting fuel across iraq every day and those landmine stories are no joke. bas s are putting them in potholes...
Godbless all our troops.
May God bless them and bring comfort to their families.
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