TANZANIAN authorities have launched a manhunt after poachers shot down a helicopter and its British pilot during an operation to track down elephant killers, officials said yesterday.

British pilot, Roger Gower, was tracking poachers on Friday in the Maswa Game Reserve when his helicopter was hit by an AK-47 rifle fired from the ground, Tanzania’s Tourism and Natural Resources Minister, Jumanne Maghembe, said.

The mission had been a collaboration between the Friedkin Conservation Fund and the Tanzanian government, which has struggled to respond to what conservation groups say has been an explosion of “industrial-scale” poaching in recent years.

“The government has launched a manhunt to find those responsible for this attack,” Maghembe told reporters.