Venezuela's military says seven soldiers have died in a helicopter that crashed in the South American nation's vast central plains. Venezuela's state-run AVN news agency says it's unclear what caused the Superpuma helicopter to come down in the state of Apure, where the soldiers were deployed on anti-drug operations.
Air Force Cmdr. Jose Perez has travelled to the crash site to help investigate the incident. Venezuela's joint chiefs of staff initially announced Thursday's crash through the Twitter social networking site.