None of the nine members of a rescue squad survived a helicopter crash in central Japan over the weekend as…
NAGANO —
None of the nine members of a rescue squad survived a helicopter crash in central Japan over the weekend as police confirmed the deaths of six more people on Monday.
The other three had already been pronounced dead following the crash of the chopper during a rescue drill on Sunday afternoon near Mt Hachibuse in Nagano Prefecture.
Of the nine, local police have identified five as pilot Masaji Iwata, 56, and firefighters Wataru Ito, 35, Noritoshi Takashima, 37, Naoto Ikuma, 35, and Michiaki Koda, 40. Iwata, who joined the Nagano disaster prevention air corps in 1997, was a veteran with over 5,100 flight hours.
Rescuers resumed their search for the missing crew on Monday morning and recovered the bodies of Ito and Takashima who had been seen trapped in the wreckage since Sunday, as well as those of the four others found underneath the aircraft.
About 100 personnel were deployed by police, firefighters and the Self-Defense Forces in the search.
