All 6 dead in helicopter crash in central Italy
CAMPO FELICE, Italy — A helicopter ferrying an injured skier off the slopes slammed into a mountainside in central Italy Tuesday, killing all six people aboard in a new tragedy to hit a region already hobbled by a series of earthquakes, paralyzing snowfall and a deadly avalanche.
Some of the dead had recently been helping out with the recovery effort from the nearby Jan. 18 avalanche, colleagues said.
The helicopter smashed to pieces in the snow upon impact, with only the tail propellers and rear section still intact. Rescue crews brought the bodies down in sleds to waiting vehicles.
Visibility at the time was only about 20 metres (yards) “and with the snow conditions visibility was practically nothing,” said Marshall Paolo Passalacqua, of the financial police’s Alpine division. “We had a really hard time trying to find the wreckage.”