Pakistan Helicopter Crashes Killing Norwegian, Philippine Ambassadors

Mangalore Today News Network

Naltar, May 08, 2015:  The ambassadors of Norway and the Philippines were among six people killed today when the helicopter carrying them crashed into a school in northern Pakistan, the army said in a tweet.

 

Leif H Larsen, the Norwegian envoy, and Domingo D Lucenario Jr of the Philippines were killed along with the wives of the Malaysian and Indonesian ambassadors, as well as the helicopter’s two pilots.

"Update Naltar: info so far; two pilots and two-three foreigners fatalities. Thirteen survivors with varying degree of injuries," tweeted Asim Bajwa, Pakistan’s army spokesman.


The convoy of three helicopters was carrying a delegation of foreign diplomats and their aides to Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan territory.

"It was a diplomatic trip with members of 37 countries in total," said a passenger in one of the helicopters, who requested anonymity, adding that the school had caught fire after the crash.

"We have been told to send in as many ambulances as we can because the situation there is ’urgent’," said a senior official.

The injured were being air lifted to a military hospital in Gilgit, the region’s administrative capital, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the southwest, added another senior local police official.

In the city of Gilgit, a hospital official said injured were being carried on stretchers to the emergency ward of the Combined Military Hospital.

 

Courtesy: NDTV