Canadian helicopter crashes in Atlantic

13 Mar 2009, 7:43 am   -   Source: AFP
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Only one survivor has been found, while 16 are still missing. (AAP)

Only one survivor has been found, while 16 are still missing. (AAP)

A Canadian chopper has crashed in the Atlantic, with one person dead and 16 still missing.

One survivor has been rescued and one person has been found dead after a helicopter with crashed into the icy north Atlantic off the coast of Canada's Newfoundland province.

According to Gerry Grychowski, a spokeswoman for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, there were 18 onboard the chopper.

16 people are still missing.

Two life rafts found floating among the crash debris some 87km southeast of Saint John's, Newfoundland, have turned out to be empty, she said.

Earlier, Rick Burt of charter firm Cougar Helicopters told a press conference: "One person has been rescued" and was rushed to hospital for treatment.

Search and rescue operations were under way and would continue into the night, if necessary, to try to locate the other 16 still missing, he said.

"The aircraft has sunk," Burt said. But "we are hopeful and so we'll continue to search until there's no hope whatsoever", he said.

The downed helicopter had been ferrying workers from Saint John's to the Hibernia offshore oil platform when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean at 9.18am local time.

"The aircraft was on its way out, experienced technical problems, radioed in that it was turning around and that was the last that we had communication," said Burt.

The chopper was part of Cougar Helicopter's newer fleet of Sikorsky S-92 helicopter and weather at the time of the accident was mild.

s rescuers continued to comb the area, however, winds picked up creating waves up to three metres high, and water temperatures were near freezing, officials said.

"We identify search patterns that we use that ensure that the entire area is covered and we do a drift assessment to determine where anything on the surface would have drifted," Burt said.

He said the missing passengers could last up to 24 hours in the water, wearing survival gear.

A half dozen military and civilian aircraft and Canadian Coast Guard vessels would continue to scour the area.

At the onset, a military plane on a routine training mission and a merchant ship were first on the scene. Others took up to an hour to reach the crash site.

The lone survivor so far was picked up by a civilian helicopter owned by Cougar Helicopter.

Since then, the company said it was temporarily suspending all of its offshore flights until it knew the cause of the crash.
 

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