Mexico City ? A helicopter crash that killed a Cabinet minister and his deputy appears to have been caused by bad weather, the president’s office said Thursday.

While one official aboard the craft had received death threats from a drug trafficker, authorities said that poor visibility probably was to blame for Wednesday’s crash that killed Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta and Federal Preventive Police Commissioner Tomas Valencia, in addition to five other passengers and two crewmembers.

The helicopter went down shortly after taking off from Mexico City, striking a mountainside about 20 miles outside the capital and scattering debris among pine trees at the 11,200-foot crash site.

“All the elements that we have at hand, all the experts that were consulted, say that there is sufficient evidence to consider that we are dealing with an accident,” presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said at a news conference. “But we must wait for the results of the investigation.”

Civil aviation authorities at the Communications and Transportation Department were leading the investigation.