Eight people, including Ghana ministers and members of Parliament, were killed Wednesday when the helicopter they were aboard crashed in the West African nation's southern Ashanti region. There were no survivors.

The helicopter had taken off from Accra, the capital, en route to a mining conference when it went “off the radar,” the armed forces said.

Ghana's Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah died in a military helicopter crash on Wednesday, along with four other officials and three air force crew, the government said.