Wreckage Of Missing Peruvian Helicopter Found, No Survivors

Wreckage of missing Peruvian helicopter found, no survivors < br />

2012-06-10 11:27:43 GMT+7 (ICT)

LIMA, PERU (BNO NEWS) -- Rescue workers on Saturday afternoon located the wreckage of a helicopter that went missing in southern Peru with more than a dozen people on board, most of them foreigners, officials said. There are no survivors.

The wreckage of the helicopter was discovered by a special search-and-rescue team after a nearly three-day long search effort. The aircraft, most of which was destroyed upon impact, was located in a rock formation near Mount Mama Rosa at an altitude of roughly 16,000 feet (4,900 meters).

"We found a part of the helicopter, the tail to be precise, and the rest of the aircraft would have disintegrated due to the collision with the rock formation," police chief Dulanto Arias was quoted as saying by the Diario Correo newspaper. He said workers would attempt to recover the bodies of the victims on Sunday morning.

The Sikorsky S58ET helicopter took off from the Mazuco District in the Madre de Dios department at around 5:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday afternoon. The aircraft was reported missing soon after it failed to arrive as scheduled in the city of Cusco at 7 p.m. local time, but rescue efforts were plagued by harsh weather conditions with heavy rainfall, snow and fog.

The aircraft was carrying a total of fourteen people, including eight South Korean nationals and one citizen each from Austria, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. In addition, three Peruvian citizens were also on board, among them one passenger, the pilot and the co-pilot.

The aircraft, which was operated by Cusco Helicopters (Helicusco), was contracted by a South Korean company in order to explore the region's rain forest for a potential hydroelectric project.

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