WASHINGTON (AP) – A helicopter carrying three senior U.S. senators made an emergency landing Thursday in the mountains of Afghanistan because of a snowstorm.

Sens. John Kerry, Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel were aboard one of two helicopters that made emergency landings, Kerry said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Turkey. Staffers were on the second chopper, Kerry said.

No one was injured, Kerry said. The senators and their delegation returned to Bagram Air Base in a motor convoy, and left for Turkey. They had been visiting some foward firebases in Afghanistan before the emergency landing.

“The weather closed in on us,” Kerry said. “It went pretty blind, pretty fast and we were around some pretty dangerous ridges. So the pilot exercised his judgment that we were better off putting down there, and we all agreed.”

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, said the group waited for about three hours until a convoy with American troops took them to Bagram Air Base. There was a perimeter guard and an F-16 fighter overhead providing cover, he said.

Kerry said the lawmakers were lucky because there happened to be a road nearby.

“We sat up there and traded stories,” Kerry joked. “We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn’t have to do it.”

Added Kerry: “Other than getting a little cold, it was fine.”

The lawmakers were on a trip this week that included stops in India, Turkey and Pakistan, where they observed the elections earlier this week.

Kerry is from Massachusetts and fellow Democrat Biden is from Delaware, while the Republican Hagel is from Nebraska. Biden is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kerry and Hagel are members of the panel.

“We were fine,” said Kerry. “The pilots were outstanding. The military handled it superbly … It was as clean and as smooth as any landing anywhere.”

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