Tragedy strikes polar mission
Tragedy has struck China's Antarctic expedition team, with one person missing last night after a helicopter crashed and sank after taking off from the ice-breaker Xue Long yesterday morning, only days after its return to Shanghai.
The three other people on board the helicopter were rescued.
Xinhua cited a spokesman for the China Marine Search and Rescue Centre as saying that the Chinese-made Z-9 helicopter crashed near the estuary of the Yangtze River at about 11.20am, about 60 metres from the expedition vessel. It said the crash occurred one minute after the helicopter took off from the Xue Long, whose name means Snow Dragon.
Pilot Yang Hua and mechanical engineers Li Baohui and Tang Lijun, were rescued but another mechanical engineer, Yang Yongchang, was missing. Three of those on board, including the missing man, had been among the 140 members of China's longest Antarctic expedition - lasting 173 days - which left Shanghai in October and returned on Friday.
Zhang Guotong, president of the Shanghai Municipal No 7 People's Hospital, told Xinhua that one of the survivors was in serious condition and the other two men were stable.
Sun Fumin, director of the Ministry of Transport's East China Sea Rescue Bureau, said: 'The water is muddy and it is getting dark, increasing the difficulties for the search.'
The ship-based helicopter was rented by the Xue Long, which was moored at the time of the accident. The Z-9, hired from a Harbin helicopter service company, had been attempting to fly to an operations base, the report quoted the Polar Research Institute as saying.
The cause of the crash had yet to be determined, but the Polar Research Institute's party chief, Wu Jingyou, said it had nothing to do with mechanical capabilities of the helicopter or its maintenance.
Xinhua said takeoff had been delayed for more than three hours because of heavy fog, and a frontier defence spokesman said the fog was thick at the time of the crash.
The rescue centre sealed off the neighbouring waters, suspended ferry traffic and dispatched nearly 10 rescue boats to the scene to search for the victims and the sunken helicopter. All the wreckage had been recovered by 9pm, Xinhua said.
The helicopter took part in scientific and logistical support missions on the latest Antarctic expedition.
During the expedition, team members erected a new research station at Dome Argus, the pole's highest icecap at 4,093 metres above sea level. Xue Long left China's Zhongshan Station for home on March 9.
