Helicopter Crash Kills Seven On Fox Glacier In New Zealand

Seven people were killed in a helicopter crash on Fox Glacier.

Fox Glacier in New Zealand is a tourist attraction because it’s one of the most accessible glaciers in the world. It attracts thousands of visitors each year.

Late Saturday morning, one sightseeing helicopter didn’t make it to the top.

The helicopter was carrying seven people: six tourists and one pilot. The pilot was local. As they neared the top of the glacier, they experienced a crash that killed all seven on board.

The names of the victims were only released a few hours ago.

There were four people from the U.K. in the crash: 66-year-old Nigel Charlton, 70-year-old Cynthia Charlton, 51-year-old Katharine Walker, and 50-year-old Andrew Virco.

Two Australians were also involved in the crash: 27-year-old Leang Sovannmony and 29-year-old Josephine Gibson.

The local that was killed has been identified as 28-year-old Mitchell Gameren.

According to the BBC, Alpine Adventures, a New Zealand company, operated the helicopter which is thought to be a Eurocopter “Squirrel.”

The Sun Daily explained that Alpine Adventures usually advertises themselves as an “experienced helicopter flight-seeing company providing visitors with a diverse range of South Island scenic helicopter flights and private charters in some of (the) most spectacular alpine and coastal regions of New Zealand.”

The company located the crash site when an emergency locator beacon was activated. The New Zealand Rescue Co-Ordination Centre pinpointed the exact location by sending helicopters to the area where they saw a scorch mark leading to the scene of the accident.

Rescue and recovery had a difficult time getting to the crash site because the helicopter had gone down into a crevasse. Fox Glacier can be dangerous because of the many crevasses found throughout. At the time of the crash, the weather was also not optimal. It was overcast and raining.

The rescue team found that debris from the crash was spread out over hundreds of meters. The main body of the helicopter was found pinned between two blocks of ice that dwarfed it in size.

Eventually, an alpine rescue team and paramedics arrived at the scene, but they confirmed that all the victims had been killed in the crash. As a result, officials explained that any recovery effort was going to have to wait until the weather stabilized.

“A helicopter carrying seven people including the pilot has crashed at the top of the Fox Glacier,” inspector John Canning told The Sun Daily. “We have been to the site and there is no sign of life and tomorrow we hope to recover the bodies of those involved.”

“I’m not going to risk any more lives, we’ve lost seven,” inspector Canning continued. “The terrain at the top of the glacier is very rough, as you can imagine it’s icy and there are crevasses – it’s quite dangerous.”

This is not the first fatal crash to occur at the Fox Glacier. In 2010, a sky diving plane was also involved in a crash with the glacier. Nine people were killed in that crash, and the safety standards of New Zealand were brought under scrutiny by some of the victim’s parents.

Fox Glacier crash: The victims https://t.co/MzueeEIoCv pic.twitter.com/0dsiRtG3zL

— nzherald (@nzherald) November 22, 2015

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn has admitted that the weather at the time of the crash was definitely “not ideal for helicopter flying.”

“It can be a fine line,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “Operators are doing their best to get people up there, but obviously something went badly wrong.”

A spokesman for the New Zealand police told the Huffington Post, “police have been liaising with the embassies of the countries concerned to ensure the next of kin are advised of the situation.”

[Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images]