Mexico City (ANTARA News/Reuters) - Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Blake was killed in a helicopter crash on Friday, a blow to the government as it fights powerful drug cartels.

Television images showed the scattered wreckage of the helicopter on a hillside south of the capital, and the government confirmed that Blake and all others on board were killed. It did not say what caused the crash.

Mexico is locked in a brutal conflict against drug cartels that has killed 45,000 people in the last five years and Blake is a key member of President Felipe Calderon`s security team.

He is the second Mexican interior minister in Calderon`s presidency to be killed in an aviation accident.

On November 4 2008, Juan Camilo Mourino and several other people died when their small plane crashed next to a major Mexico City boulevard during rush hour. Investigators concluded that Mourino`s plane had been flying too close to a much bigger jet plane ahead of it on the flight path to land at Mexico City airport, possibly causing a fatal wave of turbulence.

Blake took office in July 2010, the fourth man to serve as interior minister under Calderon.

The last tweet on Blake`s twitter account was on November 4, when he paid tribute to Mourino.

"Today we remember Juan Camilo Mourino three years after his passing, a human being who worked towards the creation of a better Mexico," Blake said. (*)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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