A helicopter ferrying an injured skier has slammed into a mountainside in central Italy, killing all six people on board in a new tragedy to hit a region already hobbled by earthquakes, paralysing snowfall and a deadly avalanche.
Some of the dead had recently been helping with the recovery effort for the nearby January 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 20m "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."
He confirmed five crew members plus the injured skier had perished.
The helicopter was taking the injured skier from the Campo Felice ski area to L'Aquila, the regional capital about 15km away.
"They were very good pilots," said Americo Scarsella, a doctor and colleague of the crew.
"Clearly what happened was not foreseeable."
The area is in Abruzzo's mountains, about 100km southwest from where emergency crews have been working around the clock to recover victims of the powerful avalanche that crushed a luxury resort.
Tuesday's crash was not related to the avalanche, though the mountain rescue crew members involved had been helping with the recovery effort until Monday, Adriano Favre of the Alpine rescue service, told RAI.
