Spanish helicopter crashes in Haiti

A Spanish military helicopter with four people on board crashed in rugged terrain in Haiti today, the United Nations said.

A Chilean helicopter attached to the UN peacekeeping mission could not land at the site about 30 miles south-east of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince because of the rough terrain, UN spokesman George Ola-Davies said.

He said the Chilean crew “could not detect any survivors on the ground simply because they could not land”.

Mr Ola-Davies did not immediately have information on the type of aircraft that crashed or what it was doing in the Fond Verrette area near the border with the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

Spain’s defence ministry said that it had lost contact with the crew and had no other details on the crash.

Spain has about 450 soldiers in Haiti helping with aid and reconstruction after the devastating January 12 earthquake that the Haitian government says killed about 230,000 people.

The Spanish troops are not attached to the 9,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission.