Crash bodies recovered from Grand Canyon

A search team has recovered the bodies of a pilot and six sightseers killed when their helicopter crashed in the western end of Arizona’s Grand Canyon.

Volunteer searchers and sheriff’s deputies abseiled down the steep canyon walls to recover the bodies from the wreckage of Saturday’s crash.

The victims were Dr Joseph Hanna, 52, and his wife, Nouhad, of Huntington, West Virginia, Masami Kato, 24, and Makiko Hatano, 23, from Japan and Germans Julia Hueyng, 33, and Wolf-Dieter Mueller, 46. The pilot was Takashi Mezaki, 45, who lived in California.