A HELICOPTER carrying high-level business executives has crashed onto a motorway after smashing into an aerial tower.

Five people were killed after the chopper came down in the mainly residential Buyukcekmece district of the city.

The Sikorsky S-76 helicopter was carrying seven people including four foreign nationals believed to be Russians, one Turkish passenger and two pilots.

Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin confirmed five of them were killed.

Local media quoted the district’s mayor Hasan Akgun saying he saw the bodies lying at the crash site, where pieces of the chopper litters the motorway.

Eyewitness Fikret Karatekin, a taxi driver, told CNN-Turk that the helicopter crashed into a TV tower before coming down on the highway.

It had just taken off from Ataturk airport moments earlier.

“It hit the tower and crashed by spinning,” he said, adding that the highway had been closed down.

Source: Sun