Mexico City: Rough weather was apparently to blame for the crash of a helicopter in which 11 soldiers sent to take part in the war on drug traffickers were killed in northern Mexico, the government said.
Preliminary information indicates the Bell 412 crash on Friday night near Santiago Papasquiaro in Durango state "was due to bad weather conditions in the area," the defence secretariat said yesterday in a statement.
The troops were among the 50,000 deployed nationwide as part of efforts to derail spiralling violence by drug cartels, the office said.
The federal government clampdown however has failed to curb the violence that has killed around 23,000 people in three and a half years.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, June 20, 2010, 08:54