Missing helicopter found
June 10, 2012
Fourteen people have been found dead in the wreckage of a helicopter crash in Peru. A team of rescue specialists uncovered their bodies at the site of the crash on Saturday high in the Peruvian Andes. Authorities said the crashed Sikorsky S-58ET was found at an altitude of around 16,000 feet (4,900 meters).
The helicopter, a Sikorsky S-58, had gone missing on Wednesday.
A police commander who went to the crash site, Raul Aybar, told The Associated Press news agency that the aircraft "crashed into the snowy Mama Rosa and exploded."
"Everyone died in the initial impact because everything is burned and scattered," he continued.
On board were eight South Koreans, a Czech, a Swede, a Dutch citizen and three Peruvians.
In Seoul, the foreign ministry said the South Koreans were engineers and officials from four South Korean companies on their way back to Cusco after conducting aerial surveillance on a possible site for a hydroelectric project near Puno, in southern Peru.
Two officials from the South Korean embassy in Lima were in Cusco to monitor the search and rescue operations.
sb/jlw (AP, AFP)