Nine Australian military personnel died when their helicopter crashed during an aid mission to the earthquake-hit Indonesian island of Nias. Prime Minister John Howard said Australia?s worst post-Vietnam War operational loss of military personnel was tragic and would be investigated, adding it appears to have been a terrible accident.

The crash of one of Australia?s ageing Sea King helicopters occurred late on Saturday as it came in to land with four crew and a seven-person emergency medical team on board near the Nias capital of Gunungsitoli.

Six of the dead were from the Royal Australian Navy and three were from the Royal Australian Air Force. Two other unidentified personnel were recovered injured from the crash.

Australian Defence Force chief Lieutenant-General Peter Cosgrove said seven men and two women had died in the crash of the helicopter, which had been flying aid sorties from the amphibious transport ship HMAS Kanimbla.

A second Sea King from the Kanimbla reported seeing the first helicopter in flames. ?My early indications are that the weather shouldn?t have been a factor,? Cosgrove said.

Indonesian police said the bodies were scattered around the wreckage and could not immediately be recovered because of difficulties in reaching the remote area and because roads to the had been cut by the earthquake.

The Kanimbla had been on its way back to Australia when it was directed to return to provide relief after Monday?s 8.7 magnitude earthquake off Nias. Up to 1,300 people may have died in Gunungsitoli alone, according to U.N. officials.

The ship and its crew had been steaming home after playing a significant role in Australia?s billion-dollar aid package to help Indonesia rebuild after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that left almost 300,000 dead or listed as missing around the Indian Ocean rim.

Cosgrove said navy personnel on board the Kanimbla had a short break in Singapore after the stressful tsunami aid mission. ?They had been working very hard...but from my point of view they were performing magnificently,? Cosgrove said. ?I wouldn?t want to say that they were absent (of) stress ... but I certainly wouldn?t want to suggest that the stress under which they were operating was necessarily a contributing factor to the crash,» he told reporters in Canberra.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono arrived in Canberra later yesterday on his first visit to Australia. ?It will obviously cast a pall over the visit in a sense that both the Indonesians and us have suffered great tragedy over the last week,? Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

<B>Paul TAIT</B>