ASSOCIATED PRESS
Weather blamed in helicopter crash in Mexico, but inquiry is continuing
MEXICO CITY
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A helicopter crash that killed a Cabinet minister and his deputy appears to have been caused by bad weather, the president's office said yesterday.
Although one official aboard the craft had received death threats from a drug trafficker, authorities said that poor visibility probably was to blame for Wednesday's crash that killed Ramon Martin Huerta, the public-safety secretary, and Tomas Valencia, the federal preventive police commissioner, in addition to five other passengers and two members of the crew. The helicopter went down shortly after taking off from Mexico City, hitting a mountainside about 20 miles outside the capital and scattering debris among pine trees at the 11,200-foot crash site.
"All the elements that we have at hand, all the experts that were consulted, say that there is sufficient evidence to consider that we are dealing with an accident," presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said at a news conference. "But we must wait for the results of the investigation."
Civil-aviation authorities at the Communications and Transportation Department were leading the investigation.
As public-safety secretary, Martin Huerta was a key figure in Mexico's fight against drug gangs, and he led a campaign to clamp down on security at high-security prisons.
Also among the dead was Jose Antonio Bernal, an official from the country's National Human Rights Commission. It announced shortly after the helicopter disappeared that Bernal been threatened in the past by Osiel Cardenas, a reputed drug lord.