Pakistan helicopter crash kills 22 in Pakistani Kashmir, inquiry ordered

A Pakistani Army Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir, during take-off and killed all 22 people on board, turning a technical failure into one of the force’s deadliest aviation losses in years. The military said the aircraft went down because of a technical fault and ordered a board of inquiry to determine exactly what failed.

Security sources said the dead included 19 soldiers, one army major and two colonels. Funeral processions and a mass funeral were held in Muzaffarabad on June 11, with coffins draped in Pakistani flags underscoring the scale of the loss and the official weight attached to the crash.

The helicopter was a Russian-made Mi-17, a medium-lift transport aircraft that Pakistan’s army uses for troop movement, logistics and operations in mountainous terrain. That makes the crash more than a human tragedy. In a sensitive border region such as Kashmir, where military movement is closely watched and security remains tight, the loss of a transport helicopter and so many personnel at once raises immediate questions about maintenance, mechanical reliability and operational strain.

Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s chief of defence forces and chief of army staff, expressed deep grief and condolences to the families of the victims. The military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations, said the board of inquiry would examine the exact technical cause, a sign that the army is treating the accident as both an operational failure and a matter of institutional accountability.

The crash also came amid protests and a strike in Muzaffarabad linked to the Joint Awami Action Committee, adding to an already tense atmosphere in the region. Video from the scene showed thick black smoke rising behind buildings where the aircraft went down, a stark image of how quickly a routine military flight can become a national security and public morale crisis.

The Mi-17 has long been a workhorse for Pakistan’s army aviation wing, which began operating the aircraft in the late 1990s. A previous army Mi-17 crash in Naltar, Gilgit-Baltistan, in 2015 killed eight people, including foreign ambassadors, a reminder that helicopter safety in Pakistan’s mountainous north has remained a recurring concern.