Bodies recovered from helicopter wreckage

A helicopter carrying two pilots and 12 passengers crashed and sank in the Baltic Sea off the Estonian coast today.

Bodies were found in the wreckage and officials said there was little hope of any survivors.

Pictures from an unmanned underwater robot sent to the wreckage showed that bodies were inside the US-made Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, which was on a commercial flight from the Estonian capital, Tallinn, to Helsinki, Finland, rescue spokesman Aivar Murikse said.

"It seems like everybody is inside," Murikse said. He said the hull was nearly intact, but the front windows were shattered and the cabin was filled with water. "Probably they died at the impact moment," Murikse said.

The chopper crashed in strong winds shortly after take-off about three miles off the coast, officials said.

Kairi Leivo, a spokeswoman at the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki, said the pilots were Finns and the passengers were six Finns, four Estonians and two US citizens. Their names were not released.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but a storm in the area caused operators to cancel the fast ferries between Tallinn and Helsinki, and wind speeds of more than 45 mph were reported on the Baltic Sea.

Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said there was no hope of finding anyone alive, and Finnish Interior Minister Kari Rajamaki sent condolences to the families of the victims.

Murikse said the robot had found the wreckage on the seabed, 157 feet below the surface. Divers would go down to recover the bodies later today or early tomorrow, depending on the weather, he said.

Finland's National Bureau of Investigation sent forensic experts to help Estonian officials identify the victims, the bureau said. They were expected in Tallinn by this evening.

The helicopter was operated by Finnish company Copterline. It disappeared from radar screens at Tallinn's air traffic control a few minutes after taking off from the city's harbour said Tonis Lepp, a senior Copterline pilot.

"They asked us if we could reach them on our own frequencies. ... We tried our frequency, but could not reach the chopper," Lepp said.

When rescuers arrived, the tail section of the chopper was sticking out of the water while the rest of the aircraft was submerged, said Mati Raidma, head of the Estonian rescue service.

The helicopter then sank, leaving only scattered debris floating on the water's surface, rescuers said.

Earlier today, fierce winds snapped the mast of a Polish sailboat in the Baltic Sea off the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Nine sailors were rescued and taken to a hospital in Poland, while the search for a 10th sailor believed to be in the water was interrupted because of bad weather.

In Lithuania, the storm knocked down power lines, cutting electricity to about 47,000 homes. About half of them had power restored by this afternoon.

Copterline has operated commercial helicopter flights across the 50-mile Gulf of Finland since 2000 without any previous accidents. The crossing takes about 18 minutes.

Last year, Finnish aviation authorities temporarily banned the company from flying helicopters in bad weather due to inexperienced pilots. The restriction was lifted after the company made changes to flying policy.

Copterline managing director Kari Ljungberg maintained that the pilots on the crashed helicopter were experienced and well-trained.

Ljungberg said the company had no information about the cause of the accident, but said that the weather was not to blame and that the helicopter flew at a "normal height."