Missing Cambodian helicopter spotted crashed after 17 days, no survivors seen

PHNOM PENH — The wreckage of a Cambodian military helicopter that went missing more than two weeks ago with two pilots aboard was spotted Monday on a mountaintop with no survivors immediately seen, the government and state news agency reports said. 


A Defense Ministry statement posted on its Facebook page said that a search flight spotted the wreckage of the Chinese-made Z-9 helicopter in the heavily forested Cardamom Mountains in the southwestern province of Pursat.


Military recovery personnel have been sent to the crash site, but it will be difficult to reach because it is densely forested and the weather is bad, the ministry said.


The ministry made no mention of bodies or survivors, but the state news agency AKP cited an unnamed senior defense official as saying the body of one of the pilots had been spotted and that the recovery team would search for the other.


The helicopter with two pilots had been on training flight, and was flying in bad weather when air force headquarters lost touch with it on July 12. An intensive search for the missing aircraft was launched a day after the incident happened.


A photo shared widely shared on social media Monday showed a helicopter broken into several pieces partially covered by foliage. The photo and its source could not immediately be verified.


In 2014, another Chinese-made Z-9 helicopter crashed in a pond south of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, killing two generals who headed the air force’s helicopter unit along with two pilots.