Associated Press report
MEXICO CITY -- Two helicopters from the Mexico Attorney General's office were shot down Monday in the mountains of western Mexico during an antinarcotics operation, killing all five officials on board.
The helicopters -- manned by drug investigators and an official from the Federal Investigative Agency -- had just lifted off to fumigate poppy plants when they were hit by high-powered weapons fired by unidentified assailants, the Attorney General's office said in a news release late Monday.
The aircraft crashed in the western state of Guerrero near the town of Tlapa, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the state capital, Chilpancingo, said Estuardo Mario Bermudez, director of the Attorney General's antidrug unit.
The victims were identified as pilots Alfredo Fon Soto and Efrain Esquivel Escalera; navigators Nahum Alvarez and Julio Cesar Guillen, and Federal Investigative Agency official Martin Nava Gonzalez.
Investigators were on the scene, Bermudez said.
The fumigation was part of a larger anti-drug operation dubbed "Mountain III," in which anti-narcotics agents from the Attorney General's office have fumigated more than 2,730 poppy and marijuana plants spread out over more than 330 hectares (815 acres) since the beginning of February.