YEREVAN. – The civil funeral for the MI-24 crew members started at Surb Sargis church in Yerevan. (photos)

The relatives, friends of Sergey Sahakyan,Sargis Nazaryan and Azat Sahakyan, servicemen and many citizens gathered near the church, the Armenian News-NEWS.am correspondent reported.

The Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire and shot down a Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Air Force helicopter on November 12. The chopper was downed during a training flight, and it crashed very close to the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact. As a result, three pilots were killed: the commander of the helicopter, Major Sergey Sahakyan, as well as Senior Lieutenant Sargis Nazaryan and Lieutenant Azat Sahakyan.

The adversary, on the other hand, was firing intensive shots toward the crash site, thus, not allowing access to the area.

But the remains of these three military servicemen plus some necessary parts of the chopper were retrieved from the helicopter’s crash site through a special operation by the NKR armed forces. As a result, the Azerbaijanis suffered serious casualties, whereas the Armenian side sustained none.