

Pietro Decristofaro, Gregorio Borgia And Paolo Santalucia, The Associated Press





CAMPO FELICE, Italy - A helicopter ferrying an injured skier off the slopes crashed Tuesday into a mountainside in central Italy , killing all six people aboard in the latest tragedy to hit a region slammed by recent earthquakes, heavy snowfall and an avalanche, officials said.

Television footage and photographs from the scene showed the helicopter smashed to pieces in the snow, 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 20 metres (yards) “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 15 kilometres (10 miles) away.

The mayor of nearby Lucoli, Gianluca Marrocchi, said he had seen the helicopter and wondered why it was flying so low.

“After that it disappeared in the fog,” he told RAI state TV.

The area is in Abruzzo's mountains, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest from where emergency crews have been working around the clock to recover victims of the powerful Jan. 18 avalanche that crushed a luxury resort. Tuesday's crash was not related to the avalanche.