Helicopter crash kills 5 soldiers in Cambodia

At least five soldiers have been killed and another seriously wounded in a military helicopter crash in Cambodia.

Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh said that the incident occurred during a military training mission on the southern outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, on Monday.

“We are investigating to find out the cause of the crash,” he said, adding that the victims were military trainees.

Tum Polin, a police officer at the crash site, said that the chopper went down into a pond surrounded by rural land and rice fields about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Phnom Penh.

The chopper was one of the 12 Chinese-built Z-9 utility helicopters Cambodia bought in 2013 to boost its military capacity.

In 2008, Cambodia’s police chief Hok Lundy along with the country’s then deputy army commander and two pilots were killed in a helicopter crash due to bad weather.