A police helicopter crashed in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Saturday morning, leaving two people on board seriously injured, police and fire officials said.

Five police officers, a doctor and a nurse were aboard the prefectural police helicopter Azuma at the time of the crash.

The doctor in his 30s was among the two injured. All seven people remain conscious, the officials said.

The helicopter crashed into a rice field while transporting a heart for transplant, the officials said.

The crash came shortly after the helicopter departed from a hospital in the Fukushima city of Aizuwakamatsu at around 8 a.m. (11 p.m. Friday GMT), bound for Fukushima Airport, the officials said.

There have been no reports of injury to residents near the crash site.

The heart was transported from the crash scene to the airport by police car and handed over to staff for the transplant.

But the transplant, scheduled to take place at the University of Tokyo Hospital in the Japanese capital on Saturday, was canceled for medical reasons.

JIJI Press