Mexican Governor Martha Erika Alonso, 45, and her senator husband are killed in a helicopter crash, less than two weeks after she became her state’s first female leader

A Mexican husband-and-wife political power couple have died in a Christmas Eve helicopter crash, officials announced.

The newly sworn-in governor of the central Mexican state of Puebla, Martha Erika Alonso, was killed alongside her senator husband Rafael Moreno Valle Rosas, when the aircraft went down in the small city of Huejotzingo on Monday afternoon.

Two pilots and a third passenger were also killed.

Alsonso, 45, had only been sworn into office ten days ago after independent electoral authorities dismissed the challenge.

Meanwhile her husband Valle was also the former Puebla governor and a prominent figure in the opposition National Action Party who had vied unsuccessfully for the party’s presidential nomination and its internal leadership. The couple did not appear to have children.

Mexico is still reeling from the loss and on Monday afternoon, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador paid tribute to the couple, while Marko Cortes, head of the National Action Party, tweeted he was deeply saddened.

‘We are in mourning,’ he wrote.

The Agusta 109 helicopter suffered an ‘apparent failure which hasn’t been determined yet’ shortly after taking off from Puebla airport bound for Mexico City on Monday.

It crashed in the municipality of Santa Maria Coronango, which is about 3.5 miles north of the city’s main airport on the western outskirts, federal Public Security Secretary Alfonso Durazo told a news conference.

Images of the crash showed a shattered, still smoldering aircraft on the edge of a scorched patch of cornfield.

The helicopter pilot and co-pilot have been identified as Captain Roberto Cope Obregon and Captain Marco Antonio Cabera Romero, according to Public Security and Civil Protection Secretary Alfonso Durazo.

The other passenger has not yet been named.

Mexican Civil Aviation authorities are investigating the cause.

Both federal and state officials said they had opened investigations into the cause – a potentially sensitive case because President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s Morena party had challenged the validity of Alonso’s election in July.

She was sworn in 10 days ago after independent electoral authorities dismissed the challenge.

State spokesman Maximiliano Cortazar demanded a ‘transparent, impartial and independent’ investigation.