Soviet Copter on Drug Raid Crashes; 4 Die
A Soviet military helicopter on a police raid to destroy opium poppy fields in Central Asia crashed and exploded in flames, killing four of the 15 people aboard, the Tass news agency reported Thursday.
The MI-8 copter was about to land in mountains near the fabled city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan when a gust of wind threw if off course and onto rocks, N. Sattarov, a senior Interior Ministry official in Samarkand, was quoted as saying.
Most of the passengers escaped through the middle and tail sections of the chopper but could do nothing to help those trapped inside as fire broke out and the craft exploded, killing four people, Tass said.
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