Los Angeles, Jan 21 (IANS): Two US Army pilots were killed in a helicopter crash in the California desert during a routine training exercise, the media reported.

Both the pilot and the co-pilot were killed on Saturday and the cause "is currently under investigation," Lt. Col. Jason S. Brown, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, was quoted ny the Fox News as saying.

The crashed AH-64 Apache gunship was attached to the Army's 4th Infantry Division based out of Fort Carson, Colorado, the report said.

It was flying to the National Training Centre at Fort Irwin in California, 240 km northeast of Los Angeles, for a regular training rotation.

The fatal accident occurred hours after the US government shutdown and it marked the first known deadly crash for the US military in 2018.

As many as 37 US troops were lost in crashes of military non-combat planes flying routine operations till November in 2017, according to an investigation report of Fox.