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.

Defense Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment Minister Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed – and seven other people died in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, the state-owned Ghana News Agency reported.