Six Air Force officers and a civilian were killed after an Indian Air Force (IAF) chopper crashed in a field near Garend Kalaan village in Budgam on Wednesday at 10.05 am. The crash took place in the backdrop of heavy shelling and firing from across the border on a day IAF fighter jets crossed the Line of Control and destroyed a vast terror camp within Pakistan in a pre-dawn strike on Tuesday.
Visuals showed the wrecked fuselage of the IAF chopper in flames and a large number of villagers standing around it.
The helicopter, a Russian made Mi-17, broke into two and caught fire immediately, the officials said.
Besides the pilots, an operator and three other crew members lost their lives in the crash, the officials said.
The local resident killed in the crash has been identified as Kifayat Hussain Ganaie, they said.
Earlier, officials in Srinagar had described the downed aircraft as a fighter jet. Soon after, airports in Amritsar, Jammu, Srinagar and Leh were shut temporarily.
However, the order on shutdown of airports was withdrawn later.