Thailand: 17 killed in 3 army helicopter crashes

The AP notes that:

A third Thai military helicopter has crashed near the country’s forested border with Myanmar in just over a week, killing three soldiers Sunday and bringing the toll from all three accidents to 17

AFP also has a story.

The Bangkok Post says the Bell 212 fleet has been grounded.

A third helicopter crashed near the Thai-Burmese border yesterday killing three people on board, forcing the army to ground its Bell 212 helicopter fleet.

The Bell 212 transport helicopter crashed in the morning while on its way to pick up the bodies of the nine victims in the Black Hawk helicopter crash on Tuesday.

The Black Hawk crashed in a Burmese forest opposite the Kaeng Krachan National Park during an operation to retrieve the bodies of five soldiers who had died in an earlier air crash involving a Huey helicopter.

The Post also notes that some believe “spirts” are to blame:

With three army helicopters crashing in just eight days, questions are being asked as to whether the tragedies were the result of accidents, a conspiracy — or supernatural powers.

A number of soldiers, officers and civilians working or living in Kaeng Krachan National Park, the site of the initial stranding of a group of officers, journalists and encroachment suspects which prompted the disastrous chain of fatal rescue and retrieval operations, believe bad omens are to blame.

“The guardian spirits here are very fierce,” said one resident of Ban Panern Thung village in Phetchaburi’s Kaeng Krachan district.

(Image: @lekasina on Lockerz.)