Terrifying moment Rio drugs gang blast police helicopter out of the sky killing four officers
FOUR police officers have been killed after a gang allegedly shot down their helicopter above Rio de Janeiro's notorious City of God favela.
In dramatic footage of the gun battle, multiple shots can be heard before the chopper spirals out of control and drops from the sky, narrowly missing a main road.
Police say the vehicle was giving support to an anti-gang operation in the Brazilian slum before it was blasted out of air.
The crash came at the climax of an intense day of clashes between police and criminal gangs operating in the area.
Firefighters pulled the victims' bodies from the wreckage, which was crumpled and smoking in the footage.
According to a police spokesman forensics teams have been examining the remains of the helicopter to determine the precise cause of the crash.
However it is believed gang members shot it down - which is not a first for the city that hosted the 2016 Olympic games.
In 2009, a police chopper exploded mid-air and crash landed on a football pitch after drug traffickers opened fire. Both pilots were killed.
An official programme to combat drug gangs in favelas was introduced in 2010 but has made little change to the climate of violence in Rio.
In August a soldier guarding at the Olympics was shot in the head with a machine gun during a brutal gun battle with drug gangs.
3,649 murders have been reported in 2016 up to September, an increase of nearly 18 per cent compared to the same period last year.
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