Saudi Arabia admitted on Saturday that a helicopter crashed along the border with Yemen, a day after the Yemeni army and the popular committees said they had downed a Saudi-led Apache.

Saudi Arabia admitted on Saturday that a helicopter crashed along the border with Yemen, a day after the Yemeni army and the popular committees said they had downed a Saudi-led Apache.

"The two pilots fell as martyrs when their aircraft crashed while they were defending the borders of Saudi Arabia from these aggressors," the Saudi-led coalition waging war against Yemen said in a statement published by the official SPA news agency.

It said that the Apache helicopter went down in the Jazan region of the kingdom, adding that an inquiry had been launched into the causes of the crash.

Earlier on Friday, Yemeni field sources said that the Yemeni army, backed by the Popular Committees had shot down a Saudi Apache in the same region.

Yemen has been since March 26 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition. Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.

Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to fugitive president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.

However, Yemeni army, backed by popular committees and tribal fighter has been responding to the aggression by targeting several Saudi border military posts and cleansing several areas across the country, especially the country’s south, from Hadi and al-Qaeda-linked militias.