Turks, Lebanese among seven dead in Italy copter crash

• Seven bodies found in wreckage of helicopter that disappeared in northern Italy.
• Helicopter went missing after leaving the city of Lucca on Thursday.
• Turkish foreign ministry says four of its citizens were on board.

Seven bodies were discovered Saturday in the wreckage of a helicopter that went missing two days ago in the mountains of northern Italy, with no survivors, according to emergency services.

The Turkish foreign ministry said four Turkish citizens were on board the helicopter that went missing on Thursday, while Italian media reports said two Lebanese were also on board.

According to the ANSA news agency, the pilot was Italian, originally from Venice, and the others were on a business trip.

“After the discovery on Mount Cusna of the remains of the aircraft that disappeared on June 9, the unfortunately lifeless bodies of the seven people on board were found in the wreckage,” Italy’s fire service announced on Twitter.

The alpine rescue service added on Twitter that “no survivors have been found”.

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In a statement issued on Friday, before the wreckage was found, the Turkish foreign ministry confirmed four of its citizens were on board a helicopter that disappeared after leaving the city of Lucca on Thursday.

#Elicottero disperso nell’Appennino Tosco-Emiliano: anche l’#AeronauticaMilitare è impegnata nelle ricerche. La direzione delle operazioni aeree di ricerca e soccorso è stata affidata al Rescue Coordination Centre del Comando Operazioni Aerospaziali pic.twitter.com/6lpAQS1EFi

— Aeronautica Militare (@ItalianAirForce) June 10, 2022

The Italian Air Force, fire and police services were all involved in the search, but the helicopter went missing in a sparsely populated mountainous area, and bad weather hampered the first attempts to find it.

In a video posted on Twitter, an unnamed spokesman for the Italian Air Force on Saturday said that after the wreckage was confirmed through aerial observations, rescue teams had to go in on foot.

#Elicottero disperso nell’Appennino Tosco-Emiliano: è stato un #HH139 del 15º Stormo dell’#AeronauticaMilitare ad individuare questa mattina alcuni rottami tra il Rifugio Battisti e la località Segheria e a segnalare la posizione per l’invio delle squadre dei soccorsi@SM_Difesa pic.twitter.com/hV9uSrQCVI

— Aeronautica Militare (@ItalianAirForce) June 11, 2022

“We went to the place and found everything burned,” he said, adding that the helicopter was effectively inside a valley.

A spokesman for the Alpine rescue service had told AFP on Friday that such a search “is not easy, if a helicopter falls amongst trees, in this season the branches close over it and it is complicated to see it from the sky.”

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