Pakistan Army Mi-17 helicopter crashes, no survivors

DUBAI: An Mi-17 helicopter belonging to Pakistan Army Aviation crashed near Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Wednesday, killing all personnel on board, according to Pakistan military officials.

The military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said the helicopter went down during take-off after developing a technical fault.

“All personnel on board embraced martyrdom. There were no survivors,” the ISPR said in a statement carried by Geo News and Dawn.

The military did not immediately disclose how many people were aboard the helicopter

Rescue and recovery teams were immediately despatched to the crash site, while a board of inquiry has been ordered to determine the exact cause of the accident.

Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, along with all ranks of the Pakistan Army, expressed deep grief over the loss of lives and extended condolences to the bereaved families.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also expressed sorrow over the crash.

“The entire nation pays tribute to the great sacrifice of the martyrs and shares the grief of the bereaved families,” President Zardari said, according to Geo News.

Prime Minister Shehbaz paid tribute to the personnel killed in the accident, saying the nation salutes the sacrifices of its soldiers.

According to Dawn, the Pakistan Army began operating the Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopters in the late 1990s. The aircraft have long served as the army’s primary transport and logistics helicopters and have been extensively used in counter-terrorism operations.

Recent crashes

The latest crash is the most recent in a series of military helicopter accidents reported in Pakistan in recent years.

In September 2025, five personnel were killed when an army helicopter crashed in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district following what officials described as a technical fault.

A month earlier, in August 2025, a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government rescue helicopter crashed in Mohmand district during bad weather, killing two pilots and three crew members.

Pakistan also witnessed two army helicopter crashes in 2022. In August that year, a helicopter carrying Commander 12 Corps Lieutenant General Sarfraz Ali and five others crashed in Balochistan’s Lasbela district, killing all on board. The following month, six army personnel, including two majors, died when another helicopter crashed during a flying mission near Khost in Balochistan’s Harnai district.

Earlier accidents include a December 2021 crash in Siachen that killed two pilots, a 2020 helicopter crash in Gilgit-Baltistan’s Astore district that claimed four lives during a casualty evacuation mission, and a 2015 military helicopter crash near Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in which all 12 people on board were killed.