Grieving family members and police officers yesterday paid tribute to the seven "heroes" who died when their helicopter crashed outside Witbank last Friday.

The pilot, crew member and five policemen from the National Intervention Unit were responding to a bakery robbery in the Mpumalanga town, when the chopper crashed in heavy mist.

Family members battled to hold back their tears as they filed past seven framed photographs of the smiling police officers set up in the Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria.

The Tshwane Police Band hastily began playing to cover the sounds of sobbing relatives before police top brass took their seats on the church stage.

More than 1000 mourners - many dressed in blue police uniform - attended the memorial service for Colonel Percy Maduna, Captain Wikus Zaayman, warrant officers Colin Edward Davids, Tinus Gouws and Dirk Cornelius "Assie" van Aswegan, and sergeants Daniel de Bruin and Jacobus Henning.

Davids, who is from Namibia, worked for the police for 16 years. Henning, who had many relatives in the police, was described as having "police blood running through his veins".

Tribute was paid to Zaaiman, "a decorated pilot" from the South African National Defence Force who joined the police two years ago, for the role he played in the rescue of hundreds of Mozambicans during the floods in 2000.

Last month he flew top police officers to the World Cup opening ceremony.

General Bheki Cele, who was marking exactly a year since he was appointed to lead the police force, acknowledged the grieving families.

"We cannot claim that our pain equals the family pains. Your pain will be worse," he said.

Cele said "the luxury of children calling on their dads is gone", but he comforted the families by adding: "This organisation will be fathers to these orphans. This organisation will be husbands to these wives.

"We can't let you walk alone."

Deputy Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said: "Draw courage that you are not alone in that pain. Your husbands are heroes of the South African Police Service. We salute these gallant fighters."

Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, who flew with Cele in a helicopter to the crash scene last Friday, said: "We did not know that those dedicated members who flew to Mpumalanga would return in this way."

Cele told journalists after the memorial service that he hoped the investigation into the crash would be "quickly finalised" for the sake of the families.

As he spoke at the funeral, Cele also warned police officers to leave their careers behind if they were not committed to their jobs.

"We are worried about members of SAPS who are arrested for committing crime," he said. Yesterday, 15 police officers were arrested.

Cele would not reveal the charges the police officers faced, but said corruption was one of them.