U.S. helicopter crashes northeast of Baghdad, killing all 13 aboard
Posted 1/20/2007 12:00 PM ET



BAGHDAD (AP) — A U.S. helicopter went down Saturday northeast of Baghdad, killing all 13 people on board, the military said.
Emergency coalition forces secured the site, the military said in a brief statement, adding the incident was under investigation.

The helicopter was carrying 13 passengers and crewmembers and all were killed, it said. The identities of the service members were being withheld pending notification of relatives.

The military said the crash occurred northeast of Baghdad but gave no other specifics. The statement also did not include the customary comment that the aircraft had not been shot down, indicating it may have been brought down by insurgent fighters.

The roiling and extremely violence Diyala Province sits northeast of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been battling Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia forces around the city of Baqouba for months.

The deaths highlighted a major danger for U.S. forces in Iraq, where the military relies heavily on air travel to transport troops and ferry officials and journalists to remote locations and to avoid the dangers of roadside bombs planted by insurgents.

The worst U.S. aircraft accident since the war began in March 2003, was on Jan 26, 2005 when a Marine transport helicopter crashed during sandstorms in Iraq's western desert killing 31 troops. Thirty Marines and one U.S. sailor were killed in the crash — the most American troops to die in a single incident in Iraq.

Three U.S. aircraft also went down in a span of two weeks late last year, including a U.S. Air Force fighter jet that crashed in a field in the volatile Anbar province on Nov. 27, killing the pilot, whose body has yet to be found.

A Sea Knight helicopter carrying 16 U.S. troops also went down in a lake in Anbar on Dec. 3, killing four, and a Marine helicopter made a hard landing on Dec. 11, injuring 18.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.