Seven bodies found at scene of helicopter crash in Italy

Four Turks and two Lebanese died when their aircraft went down in bad weather

An Italian Alpine Rescue helicopter flies over the site where the helicopter crashed in northern Italy. Reuters

Rescuers have found the bodies of seven people killed in a helicopter crash in Italy, local authorities said on Saturday, two days after the aircraft disappeared from radar screens.

The helicopter had taken off on Thursday from Lucca in Tuscany and was heading towards the northern city of Treviso, when it was lost in bad weather over a remote area.

"The rescuers have found dead the seven passengers from the helicopter, four of Turkish and two of Lebanese nationality, who were on a business trip to Italy. As well as the Italian pilot," the prefect's office in the city of Modena said.

The helicopter was found in a mountainous area on the border between Tuscany and the Emilia Romagna region, officials said.

Prosecutors cordoned off the area as part of the investigation into the incident.

"We got the co-ordinates, we went to the site and found everything burnt. The helicopter is basically inside a valley, near a stream," a rescuer said in a video posted on the Italian Air Force Twitter account.

The Turkish businessmen worked for Eczacibasi Consumer Products, a subsidiary of major Turkish industrial group Eczacibasi. They had been attending a paper technologies fair in Italy, the company said.

The helicopter was an AW119 Koala manufactured by defence group Leonardo, reports said.

The ANSA news agency reported it was owned by transport and aeronautic maintenance company Avio Helicopters, based in Thiene, in northern Italy. Avio Helicopters was not immediately available for comment.

The crash site was about 10 kilometres from where rescuers initially began searching based on the last cellular pings from the passengers’ phones.