Eurocopter crash kills 6 in France

All six people on board a helicopter owned by the chopper manufacturer Eurocopter died Wednesday when the aircraft plunged into a mountain in southeastern France, sources said. The bodies were recovered from near the village of La-Palud-sur-Verdon, a source close to the crash inquiry said. Local officials had said earlier that the helicopter was an army aircraft. A Eurocopter spokesman said the six men on board the Super Puma AS 532 AL helicopter were test pilots and engineers working for the group and that the aircraft was on a test flight before being delivered to a buyer. It came down at around 1145 GMT near a group of people hiking in the popular tourist area and the crash injured one of them sligthly on the ankle, local officials said. One of the possible causes of the accident being considered was that the chopper hit an electricity cable, the source close to the crash inquiry said. Experts from the French aviation safety authority and Eurocopter staff were on the way to the site to help try and determine the cause, the company said. A private jet crashed in the same region on July 13, killing three people.