Eight people were killed after a helicopter crashed in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province, officials said on Friday, as rescue teams worked to recover the bodies and wreckage from dense forest terrain.
The Airbus H130 helicopter lost contact on Thursday morning, about five minutes after taking off from a plantation area in Melawi district, Reuters quoted Mohammad Syafii, head of Indonesia’s rescue agency, as saying.
“The crash site is located in a densely forested area with steep and hilly terrain,” Syafii said, adding that rescuers had found debris believed to be the helicopter’s tail around three kilometres (two miles) west of the point where contact was lost.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
A spokesperson for the local rescue agency said all six passengers and two crew members on board had died.
Rescuers, including military and police personnel, were attempting to reach the site by land on Friday.
Syafii said the plantation belonged to Indonesian palm oil company Citra Mahkota, while the helicopter was operated by Matthew Air Nusantara.
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