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Crash of NATO tilt-rotor craft in Afghanistan kills 4

09 April 2010 20:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Three U.S. service personnel and a civilian contractor die in the crash in Zabul province in the volatile south. A number of others aboard the temperamental CV-22 Osprey craft were injured, APA reports quoting â€œThe Los Angeles Timesâ€.
The overnight crash in Zabul province also injured a number of others aboard, NATOâ€™s International Security Assistance Force said in a statement, without giving details. It identified the craft as an Air Force CV-22 Osprey, which uses tilt-rotor technology to take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a plane.

The Taliban claimed to have shot down the aircraft, but insurgents routinely issue such boasts whenever any Western plane or helicopter goes down.

NATO said the cause of the crash was not immediately known. Ospreys, which can fly twice as fast as conventional helicopters, suffered a number of crashes and mechanical failures in the early years of development, together with significant cost overruns.

Officials did not identify the branch of service of those who were killed and injured, or disclose anything about their mission.

Zabul borders Kandahar province, which is to be the venue for a major Western military offensive over the summer. It also shares a border with Pakistan, with numerous Taliban infiltration routes along the porous frontier.

Insurgents are active throughout Zabul, military officials have said.

NATO did not immediately say whether its forces had been able to secure the scene of the crash and remove the downed Osprey, which is fitted with an array of sophisticated communications gear and weapons systems.

The Western military said the injured were taken to a nearby military base for treatment. The crash occurred about seven miles west of Zabulâ€™s capital, Qalat.

NATO forces are heavily reliant on both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft because Afghanistanâ€™s roads are so bad and its distances so great. But in more than eight years of fighting, the Taliban have only rarely been able to down Western aircraft with missiles or rockets.

Mechanical failure and weather-related problems are much likelier culprits in crashes. But insurgents did manage to shoot down a Chinook helicopter five years ago, killing 16 U.S. troops.

U.S. battlefield casualties have spiked in the first quarter of this year, with deaths roughly doubling from the same period a year ago.

The largest proportion of deaths and injuries occur in Afghanistanâ€™s south, where the insurgency is at its strongest. Improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are the biggest single killer of Western troops.

In the western province of Herat, Afghan police reported the deaths of three civilians when their minivan hit an IED. The road on which the vehicle was traveling is sometimes used by military convoys; insurgent-planted bombs aimed at Western troops often kill and injure civilians instead.