The helicopter carrying army chief Bismillah Khan and three Cabinet ministers crashed during takeoff in the Panjshir Valley, about 100km north of Kabul. Presidential spokesman Khaleeq Ahmed blamed the crash on the chopper's rotor blades clipping a tree during takeoff.
The craft was about 30m in the air when it wobbled, then quickly descended, flipped on its side and crashed, an AP photographer at the scene said. It burst into flames and then exploded.
Hundreds of spectators, including government leaders and foreign ambassadors, fled screaming as chunks of metal slammed into a group of vehicles parked nearby.
The officials had been attending a memorial in honor of Ahmed Shah Masood, the former head of the US-backed Northern Alliance who was killed by two suspected al-Qaeda assassins on Sept. 9. 2001.
Khan, Sediqa Balkhi, the minister for the disabled, and the chopper's two pilots were injured, Azimi said.
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