Authorities recovered late Sunday the bodies of all 14 people on board a helicopter that crashed in a mountainous region in south-eastern Peru, an official and a news report said.
Thirteen of the bodies were found in the fuselage of the Sikorsky S-58T, which had apparently crashed into the Mama Rosa mountain range in the department of Cusco on Wednesday, Police General Raul Salazar said.
The final body was found two or three hours later, an official was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.
Eight of those on board were South Korean, with the others consisting of one Dutchman, one Swede, one Czech, and three Peruvians including two pilots, a spokeswoman for the flight operator HeliCusco said on Thursday.
Three teams of forensic experts were preparing to work on their identification “all night if necessary, to allow their remains to be returned to their families,” said Elizabeth Ortiz de Orue, the department’s chief prosecutor.
Identification of the bodies that were burned in the accident was to be carried out using dental records and DNA, she said.
The aircraft was returning to the department capital Marcapata from a trip to a potential hydropower site near the city of Mazuko when it crashed, Yonhap reported. The rescue operation was hindered by snowfall, with the wreckage finally located at 4,950 metres above sea level, the report said.
