Tunisia army helicopter missing: defense ministry

TUNIS (AFP): A Tunisian army helicopter with four people on board is missing and feared crashed hours after vanishing from radar screens, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

The ministry has learnt that “communications have been lost with a helicopter which was making a night flight in the Cape Serrat area yesterday (Wednesday) evening,” it said in a statement.

“Land, sea and air resources have been mobilized in coordination with the interior ministry to carry out searches to locate the aircraft and establish the fate of its crew of four.”

The Tunisian military has lost a number of aircraft on training or reconnaissance missions in recent years.

In October 2021, three soldiers were killed when an army helicopter crashed during a night exercise in the southern province of Gabes.

The findings of an official investigation into that accident have still not been released.