Mexico helicopter crash kills Interior Secretary Blake Mora

MEXICO CITY. November 12. KAZINFORM Mexico's Secretary of the Interior, Francisco Blake Mora, has died in a helicopter crash near Mexico City; Kazinform refers to BBC.

The helicopter was flying to Cuernavaca in neighbouring Morelos state for a prosecutors' meeting when it went down.

All eight people on board were killed. President Felipe Calderon said weather conditions were probably to blame.

Mr Blake Mora, 45, was appointed to the post last year and was a key figure in the war against drug cartels.

The helicopter had initially been reported missing. Some Mexican media reports said there was heavy cloud at the time.

"Unfortunately the interior secretary, his [assistants] and the helicopter crew were found dead," government spokeswoman Alejandra Sota said.

Deputy Interior Secretary Felipe Zamora Castro and the interior ministry's chief press officer Jose Alfredo Garcia Medina were also killed in the crash along with other government officials and the air force crew, Ms Sota said.

She said a search for the helicopter began when it was discovered it had strayed from its planned course.

Mexican television showed wreckage from the helicopter strewn across a hillside.

Ms Sota said the craft went down in the Xochimilco area, just south of Mexico City.