The incident took place in the Khairi mountain of Jamanki district, located north of Dohuk Governorate in the Kurdistan Region.
"The accident occurred due to bad weather," the source explained. The
Rudaw adds:
Videos submitted to Rudaw on Wednesday evening depicted employees of an oil company running away from a large fire as the sound of sirens played in the background."Two helicopters were flying around the area. One of them broke down and spun around twice, before crashing and catching fire," Haval Mohammed, an employee of the company and an eyewitness to the crash, told Rudaw's Nasir Ali.
A military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Rudaw that seven bodies have been recovered from the crash, adding that their bodies have been completely burnt.
As of the time of this writing, the reason for the helicopter’s crash and whether it belonged to the Iraqi armed forces or a foreign country remain unclear.
Reports circulated following the crash suggesting that the helicopter belonged to
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...’s armed forces. The
Chamanke is located 15 kilometres from Mount Gara, known for frequent festivities between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).