Eight soldiers including Kohat General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Javed Sultan were killed when an army helicopter crashed in South Waziristan on Wednesday. The US-made Bell 412 came down near Tanai in Ahmedzai Wazir areas minutes after it took off from Wana at 2:40pm. “We lost seven commissioned and one non-commissioned officer in the crash,” army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told Daily Times. APP news agency said the eighth soldier was a junior commissioned officer.
Maj Gen Athar Abbas ruled out the possibility of hostile action. “It was a technical fault that caused the crash,” he told Daily Times.
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The crash comes at a time when the military was pushing hard against Baitullah Mehsud-led militants in South Waziristan. A military official said the militants did not have the capability to shoot down the helicopter. “We have received no information so far that they have a weapon that can bring down a helicopter,” he said on condition of anonymity. In 2006, militants were able to damage a door of a combat helicopter in North Waziristan using an improvised rocket. The helicopter reached its destination safe.
President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Kayani expressed grief on the crash and condoled with the families, APP reported. In his message to the bereaved families, President Musharraf called the incident “a great loss, of professionals who lost their lives with their boots on.” A helicopter escorting President Musharraf to Azad Kashmir in October last year crashed and burst into flames, killing four troops. Musharraf’s own helicopter was not affected. Six soldiers were killed when another Mi-17 crashed days after the catastrophic October 2005 earthquake.