A helicopter ferrying passengers from an Anglo-Australian-owned copper mine in the Andes has crashed with 10 people aboard, police in Peru said today.
The Bell 412b helicopter left La Granja in Peru's northern province of Cajamarca - some 420 miles from Peru's capital, Lima, this morning, en route for coastal city Chiclayo.
There were eight passengers and two pilots aboard.
Jesus Tapia, police chief of the nearby town of Santa Cruz, said it was not clear if there were survivors, but he said rescuers who spotted the crashed helicopter from the air said it was destroyed.
Some of the passengers aboard the helicopter were employees of the La Granja mine owned by the Rio Tinto Group, the company said, but it did not specify numbers or nationalities.
