The military said 13 of the 16 people were American military personnel and three were U.S government contractors.

Two other U.S. service members were unaccounted for, spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said today in the Afghan capital, Kabul. It was the deadliest military crash in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The CH-47 Chinook was returning to the U.S. base at Bagram from a mission in the militant-plagued south when it went down near Ghazni city, 80 miles southwest of Kabul.

"Indications are it was bad weather and that there were no survivors," Moore said. An Afghan official said there were no signs the craft was shot down.

Before the crash, 26 Schofield soldiers had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 270 had been wounded.

Maj. Gen. Eric T. Olson, commander of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield, said yesterday during a ceremony at Wheeler Army Airfield that two of the soldiers aboard the Chinook were from the 25th.

The ceremony was to welcome Hawai'i-based soldiers returning from the Middle East.

Olson offered no further information about the soldiers, and 25th spokeswoman Capt. Kathleen Turner would not elaborate.

"I've not gotten any notification through official PAO (public affairs officer) channels," Turner said. "We can't confirm anything while we are doing next-of-kin notification."

Earlier in the day, staff for members of Hawai'i's congressional delegation said their offices had not been informed of any Hawai'i-based casualties.

But the Pentagon did tell Sen. Daniel Akaka's office that such information would take 36 hours to determine.

Most of the soldiers to whom Olson spoke during the ceremony at Wheeler yesterday were from aviation units returning from Afghanistan, said Maj. Chuck Anthony of the Army National Guard.

Olson himself had recently served there.

Bravo Company, 193 Aviation soldiers — Hawai'i Army Guard soldiers who performed maintenance on Chinooks and other types of helicopters in Afghanistan — were among those taking part in the ceremony, Anthony said.

The Bravo Company mechanics, a second rotation of them, had been in Afghanistan since last spring. 193rd's Charlie Company also deployed to Iraq last spring, taking the unit's Chinooks and pilots with them.

Anthony said the Chinook that crashed was not from the Hawai'i National Guard and that the majority of the 193rd Bravo and Charlie company soldiers who were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq have returned to Hawai'i.

Moore said the transport helicopter was returning from a "routine mission" when controllers lost radio contact. A second Chinook made it safely back to the sprawling base north of Kabul.

Associated Press Television News footage showed dozens of Afghan security forces and officials scurrying around burning wreckage. Strong winds that had whipped thick dust into the darkened sky fanned the flames.

Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the chief of police in Ghazni, said the helicopter crashed about 2:30 p.m. near a brick factory three miles outside the city and burst into flames. U.S. troops rushed to cordon off the area, he said.

Cloudy and windy

Sarjang said that the weather was cloudy with strong winds and that witnesses reported one of the helicopter's two rotors looked damaged before it hit the ground. He said he saw no sign of enemy fire, and militants issued no claim of responsibility.

According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, at least 122 American soldiers had died before yesterday's incident in and around Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war on terrorism, began after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Accidents have proven almost as deadly as attacks from Taliban-led insurgents, including a string of helicopter crashes and explosions caused by mines and munitions left over from the country's long wars.

The previous worst incident in Afghanistan was an accidental explosion at an arms dump in Ghazni province that killed eight American soldiers in January 2004.

Most recently, four U.S. soldiers died when a land mine exploded under their vehicle south of Kabul on March 26.