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Crashed U.N.-chartered chopper found in Haiti
March 15, 1999
Web posted at: 8:52 p.m. EST (0152 GMT)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) -- Search and rescue crews located the wreckage of a U.N.-chartered helicopter that crashed on its way to evacuate an injured Finnish woman in Haiti, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.
U.N. officials in Haiti said the Coast Guard told them it was unlikely anyone on board had survived.
But a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami, Chief Quartermaster Dave Jersey, said the possibility of finding survivors couldn't be ruled out.
"We don't know. We haven't accounted for everyone at this point," Jersey said.
The Russian-made was carrying 13 people, including six Argentinians, six Russians and one U.S. citizen, when it slammed into a mountain about 36 miles north of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, late Sunday.
The helicopter mission was made at the request of the Finnish government to rescue a woman who had reportedly been seriously wounded by a boat at a resort near Haiti's second largest city, Cap Haitien.
Another helicopter had previously tried to evacuate the woman, but was grounded after developing a fuel leak.
A spokesman for Royal Caribbean, which owns the resort island of Labadee near Cap Haitien, said a woman in her 20s was badly injured by a speedboat while swimming on a beach. She was a guest at a hotel in Cap Haitien.
"Some of our divers that live on the property saw her get hit. They dove in, rescued her and got her ashore and did whatever first aid they could," Rich Steck said.
Steck said he believed the woman had now been evacuated to the United States, after being taken by boat to a hospital in Cap Haitien.
Five of the Argentinians were members of a U.N. civilian police force that has been trying to control renewed violence and train police in Haiti.
That civilian force replaced a U.N. peacekeeping force sent to the Caribbean nation in the wake of the 1994 U.S.-led invasion that removed a military junta and reinstalled Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president.
Reuters contributed to this report.
RELATED SITES:
United States Coast Guard Home Page
United Nations Home Page
Haiti Global Village, Haiti's premiere online community.
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