<span style="color: #222222;">The Philippines grounded its entire fleet of Black Hawk helicopters after one of the new aircraft crashed during a night-time training flight, killing all six on board.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that three pilots and three airmen died when their S70-i went down near the Crow Valley training range north of Manila yesterday. He said, the incident is being investigated. </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The country ordered 16 of the multi-role aircraft from a Polish firm that made them under licence from the Sikorsky division of US defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Eleven have been delivered since late 2020.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The government bought the Black Hawks to replace the air force's ageing fleet of Bell UH-1H helicopters, commonly known as the Huey. Many of them were acquired as surplus from the United States, Manila's longtime military ally.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">Lorenzana said the Black Hawk fleet has been used for humanitarian assistance and disaster response, including flying COVID-19 vaccines to remote areas of the archipelago nation.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"> </span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Philippine military is also fighting a long-running communist insurgency across the country and Islamic State-linked militants in the south.</span><br />''  <br />