FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) - Tim Martin was driving onto Fort Drum when he heard the sobering news about a helicopter crash. He breathed a sigh of relief once he knew his wife was safe.

"I heard a helicopter went down, then they said where it went down," said Martin, whose wife is an Army military intelligence officer serving in Iraq.

Ten Fort Drum soldiers died in Afghanistan Friday evening when their CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter crashed during combat operations as part of a hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban militants believed to be hiding in the mountainous terrain of rugged and remote Kunar province.

The helicopter fell into a ravine while conducting operations on a mountaintop landing zone, according to a statement from the U.S. military base in Afghanistan. The U.S. military said the helicopter was not downed by hostile fire and an investigation was under way.

The names and units of the soldiers, members of the 10th Mountain Division, will not be released for several days, Fort Drum spokesman Benjamin Abel said Sunday.

The crash was the deadliest for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in a year, and was the deadliest for Fort Drum since March 11, 2003, when a chopper crash on post killed 11 soldiers.

"We pray for our soldiers in harm's way because everybody in our congregation has someone or knows someone that's across the water. That's the only thing we can do," Derek Parker, a 20-year Army veteran who has served twice in Iraq, said Sunday after a worship service at Sweet Haven Holy Church of God.

Of the roughly 18,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan, about half are from the 10th Mountain Division, which is based at Fort Drum.