3 yıl önce

Helicopter crash in Azerbaijan kills military personnel

A military helicopter belonging to Azerbaijan's state border guard went down during a training flight in the Khyzy region.

Reuters

The incident came two weeks after Azerbaijan and Armenia engaged in the worst fighting along their shared border since the second Karabakh war.

At least fourteen people have died in an Azerbaijani military helicopter crash which went down in the east of the Caucasus country during a training flight.

The country's border service and prosecutor general said in a joint statement on Tuesday that "a military helicopter belonging to Azerbaijan's state border service crashed today at Garakheybat airfield in the Khyzy region at approximately 10.40 am (06.40 GMT) while conducting a training flight."

"Fourteen people died and two more were wounded as a result of a state border service helicopter crash," the country's frontier guard said in a statement.

All of the victims were military servicemen, according to the guard.

They said an investigation was under way into the accident's causes.

Border clashes

The incident came two weeks after Azerbaijan and neighbouring Armenia engaged in the worst fighting along their shared border since going to war last year over the Armenian-occupied Karabakh region.

The six-week war claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended in November 2020 with a Russian-brokered ceasefire. The deal saw Armenia cede swathes of Karabakh, a territory internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

Six Armenian troops and seven Azerbaijani soldiers were killed on November 16 in a flare-up in fighting. A truce was negotiated the same day by Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu.

Tensions between Baku and Yerevan have been running high since May, when Armenia said Azerbaijan's military crossed its southern frontier to "lay siege" to a lake shared by the two countries. Azerbaijan's foreign ministry dismissed the accusations, saying Azerbaijan was protecting its border.