This Article is From Apr 16, 2013

US military helicopter Black Hawk crashes near North Korea border

US military helicopter Black Hawk crashes near North Korea border

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Seoul: A US military helicopter crashed on Tuesday near the North Korean border, a South Korean defence official said, with no reported casualties.

The helicopter, identified by the Yonhap news agency as a UH-60 Black Hawk, came down in Cheolwon county, which touches on the border with North Korea, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

The precise cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but the incident occurred during ongoing South Korea-US joint military exercises.

Yonhap quoted emergency rescue workers as saying the 12 service personnel on board the helicopter had survived the crash, which comes at a time of heightened military tensions on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea has condemned the joint exercises as a rehearsal for invasion, and made a series of dire threats of military retaliation.

There are 28,500 US military personnel permanently stationed in South Korea.

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