A missing helicopter and the bodies of three crew members have been found in Papua New Guinea.
The three crew, believed to be Australians Russell Aitken, 42, and licensed aircraft maintenance engineer Emmett Fynn, 36, and New Zealander Antony Annan, 49, were declared deceased at the scene. The wreckage indicated a crash landing.
The wreckage was found about 1pm Papua New Guinea time.
A helicopter tailboom was seen from the air soon after 7am today local time, and ground crews were immediately sent to the site, the operator, Hevilift, said in a statement.
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About noon yesterday the Hevilift search and rescue effort had been directed to an area on the Purari River, eight kilometres from Bawata, when a villager, who was searching the waterways and rivers, found some pieces of plastic that were clearly from a Hevilift-branded “fly away kit”.
“We knew then that the area where we had been searching was correct and we concentrated the ground search teams upstream of the location of where the debris was found,” said Paul Booij, group managing director, Hevilift.
“Unfortunately our worst fears were realised this morning,” Mr Booij said.
“This is a harrowing time for everyone, our staff and their families, the searchers and all those supporting this massive search effort. It is a time for grieving for our colleagues and their families and for us to look after all our other staff and their families.
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“We are devastated that this has happened. Every one of us had hoped to find them alive and now we have to deal with the reality.
“We will be conducting a thorough investigation of what went wrong and why it went wrong, and we will also be co-operating fully with all authorities in their investigations. Until those investigations are complete, we will not be entering into any speculation.
“We can assure everyone that no one wants to know what happened more than we do. We operate in rugged terrain and challenging conditions in Papua New Guinea and we have very strict protocols within our operations.
“We take the safety of our staff very seriously, it is our highest priority. We aim to keep them all safe and, to achieve that, we have rigorous maintenance schedules in place for all our aircraft; along with strict operational flight safety programs and protocols.”
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