The Lynx Mark 7 helicopter, which was carrying four soldiers from the Nine Regiment Army Air Corps, came down near the village of Tilton on the Hill, near Melton Mowbray, just before noon.

The BBC's Daniel Boettcher: "Eyewitnesses say they saw it flying low, with obvious mechanical failure"

WO2 Sergeant Major Andrej Prenczek, Staff Sgt Stuart Donnan and Staff Sgt Peter Clyne were confirmed dead at the scene, and one unnamed survivor was flown to Leicester Royal Infirmary suffering multiple injuries.

An eyewitness says it appears that the pilot manoeuvred the craft to avoid houses before the crash.

Victor Partridge, 44, said he saw black smoke pouring from the helicopter just moments before it crashed.

"At first I thought it was going to crash on the houses where I live but seemed to turn away along the hedge line then the nose dipped and there was a tremendous explosion," he said.

Emergency services at the crash scene

Mr Partridge said he and neighbours ran to the scene and tried in vain to rescue the crew.

"There was one man lying on the ground and shouting for us to help his mate get out," said Mr Partridge, but said by the time they had been able to move him the man was dead.

He said he had seen at least two other crew members near the wreckage but added that they were both "obviously dead".

Another witness described the "scene of devastation" after the crash.

Eyewitness Mandy Farnworth: "It was gently coming down and then there was a flood of black smoke"

Nick Canham said: "Left at the moment is just a pile of smouldering wreckage.

"There's not a great deal left of it. There's just quite an amount of wreckage spread over a 100-yard area."

Village post office worker Elaine Dilks said the electricity supply to the village had been cut off by the crash.

"I think the helicopter must have hit the power lines as it came down.

'Exemplary safety record'

"We are all appalled at this tragedy. This is a very remote area with only a few houses scattered about," she said.

The helicopter had been on a routine flight from the Nine Regiment Army Air Corps base at Dishforth in Yorkshire, to a base in Hampshire.

An MoD spokesman stressed that it had no involvement with the Kosovo conflict.

There are 126 Lynx helicopters in service with the Army. They are either fitted with missiles as anti-tank aircraft or for transporting troops in the battlefield.

The MoD spokesman said the Lynx had an exemplary safety record and was one of the two main types of helicopter used by the Army.

Lieutenant Colonel Iain Thomson, the commanding officer of Nine Regiment Army Air Corps, said: "This tragedy has obviously come as a great shock to all of us and we would wish to offer our deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones."