Just metres between life and death for Aussie photographer in Iraqi helicopter crash

An Australian photographer who survived a helicopter crash in Iraq says he escaped death by metres.

The Iraqi military helicopter was providing aid to Yazidi refugees stranded on Mount Sinjar after they fled Sunni militants when it crashed, killing the pilot.

Australian photographer Adam Ferguson was on the helicopter but survived uninjured.

"If we had been another 50 metres higher we'd all be dead," he told his colleagues at The New York Times.

The Russian-built Mi-17 helicopter crashed after too many people tried to climb aboard.

"The helicopter delivered aid to the people stranded in Sinjar and too many people boarded it and it hit the mountain during takeoff," said the Iraqi statement.

New York Times reporter Alissa Rubin, riding along on the helicopter for a story, suffered an apparent concussion and broken wrists in the crash.

Sunni militants from the Islamic State group on August 4 took the town of Sinjar in a remote region of Iraq near the Syrian border and gave the local Yazidi minority population an ultimatum to convert to Islam or die.