All seven people aboard a helicopter carrying tourists that crashed yesterday on a scenic New Zealand glacier are believed to have been killed, police said.
The wreckage of the helicopter was located inside a crevasse on Fox Glacier, on New Zealand’s South Island, but difficult terrain made it hard for rescuers to reach it, police said in a statement, adding that the pilot and six passengers are believed dead.
The helicopter crashed at about 11am on the popular tourist destination. Police said they were attempting to notify relatives before releasing the identities or nationalities of the victims. They said they would try again to recover the bodies today.
Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn said the weather was marginal at the time of the crash, with intermittent rain and low clouds.
“It was not ideal for helicopter flying,” he said.
Kokshoorn said the region had been experiencing a bumper start to the Southern Hemisphere tourist season, but that bad weather had been putting pressure on some tourist operators.
“It can be a fine line,” he said. “Operators are doing their best to get people up there, but obviously something went badly wrong.”
Kokshoorn said that the glaciers in recent years have been retreating and the only way to view them up close is by helicopter. He said operators offer different packages and a basic trip typically involves a 10-minute flight to the top of the glacier, where tourists can walk around for about half an hour before returning.
Rescue teams reached the scene yesterday afternoon, but crevasses and rugged terrain were hampering their efforts.
A rescue helicopter used a winch to lower a paramedic and an alpine rescue team to the vicinity of the crash, Maritime New Zealand spokesman Vince Cholewa said. He said the area where the helicopter crashed was filled with treacherous terrain.
He said there were low clouds in the area, but otherwise the rescuers had not been hampered by the weather.
New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission spokesman Peter Northcote said the helicopter was ferrying tourists at the time. He said a team of investigators was planning to survey the scene.
Nine people died in 2010 when an airplane carrying skydivers crashed near the same glacier.
New Zealand relies on tourism as a major source of revenue, but has been criticized by some people as having safety standards that are too lax. The parents of four tourists who died in the 2010 crash near Fox Glacier later wrote to New Zealand Prime Minister John Key urging him to improve safety measures in the industry.
Kokshoorn said that he hopes authorities complete a thorough investigation into the latest crash to ensure the industry is safe and that tourists can have confidence that operators make the right decisions in bad weather conditions.
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