Vietnam military helicopter downs outside Ho Chi Minh

By Bennett Murray

VIETNAM, Hanoi (AA) - A rescue team has been sent to search for survivors after a military helicopter crashed in southern Vietnam early Tuesday with a pilot and two students on board.

The Eurocopter EC130 -- a single engine helicopter used as a trainer -- reportedly crashed at 8.30 a.m. (0230GMT) in mountains around 80 kilometres (49.7 miles) from Ho Chi Minh City, reported the VN Express news site.

A search and rescue team was reportedly sent to the site, where black smoke was seen pluming.

Neither the cause of the crash or the fate of the crew has been established.

The crash comes four months after a Vietnamese coastguard CASA C-212 turboprop went down taking nine lives in the Gulf of Tonkin.

It had been searching for another downed plane, a Su-30 fighter jet, that had disappeared two days before.

The state of repair of the Vietnamese military’s air fleet is a sensitive topic for the government, which revoked the credentials of local journalist Mai Phan Loi after he speculated on social media that corruption in the military was responsible for shoddy maintenance following June’s crashes.

Loi was "seriously damaging the reputation of [the] Vietnamese People's Army,” said Information Minister Truong Minh Tuan in a statement.

Vietnam’s military aircraft are mostly decades-old planes and helicopters from the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.

But with the United States’ arms embargo lifted, Vietnam may now buy modern U.S. aircraft on a case-by-case basis.