Biodun.BBC: BREAKING: Mexico Puebla governor Martha Erika Alonso killed in air crash

Martha Erika Alonso speaks during her swearing-in ceremony in Puebla state, Mexico. Photo: 14 December 2018 — Image captionMartha Erika Alonso was sworn in as Puebla's governor 10 days before the crash

by Renee Celeste and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Mexico City

The governor of Mexico's central Puebla state, Martha Erika Alonso, has died in an air crash, just days after being sworn into office.

Her husband, Senator Rafael Moreno Valle, was also killed.

Reports from Mexico say the accident happened shortly after the aircraft took off from the city of Puebla.

Ms Alonso, 45, became the first female governor of Puebla after hotly contested elections. She was member of the centre-right PAN party.

The deaths were confirmed by Mexico's new President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

In a tweet (in Spanish), President López Obrador expressed "deepest condolences" the relatives of the two politicians.

He said an investigation would be launched to establish "the truth" about what caused the crash.

It was not immediately known whether the pilot was also killed in the incident near the state capital of Puebla, Mexico's second largest city.

Ms Alonso had taken office only on 14 December, narrowly beating President Lopez Obrador's favoured candidate for the governorship of one of Mexico's most populous states.

Her husband had also once served as the state governor.

Monday's incident comes after a number of high-profile deaths in helicopter crashes over the years in Mexico, including Interior Minister Francisco Blake Mora in 2011, the BBC's Will Grant reports.

Earlier this year, 13 people died when a minister's helicopter crashed into a crowd, although the minister himself survived, our correspondent says.