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Six people have been killed in a rescue helicopter crash in a mountainous area of central Italy, officials say.

The aircraft came down in thick fog near the Campo Felice ski station after picking up an injured skier.

The rescue was not related to last week's avalanche that engulfed a hotel nearby, killing at least 15 people.

Rescue teams reached the wreckage "and they found the bodies of the six deceased in the snow", a police spokesman told the AFP news agency.

The helicopter was taking the injured skier to hospital in L'Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo province.

Some witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion before it crashed.

Gianluca Marrocchi, mayor of the nearby town of Lucoli, said he saw the helicopter flying very low. "After that it disappeared in the fog," he told RAI state TV.

Campo Felice is a small skiing resort popular with day-trippers from Rome, which is 120km (75 miles) to the west.

It is on the other side of Italy's 3,000m Gran Sasso mountain range from the four-star Hotel Rigopiano, which was engulfed by an avalanche on 18 January triggered by a series of earthquakes. Fourteen people remain unaccounted for there.</s>A rescue helicopter crashed in Italy as it was rescuing a person wounded in a skiing accident.

The helicopter plunged from a height of 600m (2000ft) as it was heading towards L'Aquila transporting a wounded person from the ski slopes of Campo Felice. It is believed six people were abroad: two pilots, a doctor, a nurse, an alpine rescuer and the person the helicopter was sent to rescue.

According to the first reports on Italian news agency Ansa, the helicopter sent a crash signal and then disappeared from the radar. Witnesses report hearing a loud bang. The causes of the crash appear to be related to adverse weather conditions of heavy rain and fog. Rescue operations to find the helicopter are underway, although the heavy fog will complicate their work.

The helicopter was not related to other emergencies currently affecting the Italian region of Abruzzo, which is fighting against the "weather emergency", as it is dubbed in local media, and the ongoing operations to find the people still trapped in the Hotel Rigopiano avalanche.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.</s>A rescue helicopter thought to be carrying six people has crashed in a mountainous area of central Italy, local news reports say.

The aircraft came down near the Campo Felice ski station after picking up an injured skier.

The reports said the rescue was not related to a recent avalanche in the same area.

A spokesperson for the civil protection agency said it was aware of a helicopter incident but had no details.

State broadcaster Rai said a rescue team had been flown in from the Penne operations headquarters, where the avalanche rescue is being coordinated.

“The area where it came down is hard to access at the best of times, and thick fog is making it even more difficult,” a police spokesman said.

“Several teams are trying to get there.”

The helicopter issued a crash signal and people nearby reported hearing a loud explosion, police said.

Campo Felice is a small skiing resort popular with day-trippers from Rome, which is 120km (75 miles) to the west.</s>A rescue helicopter thought to be carrying six people has crashed in a mountainous area of central Italy, local news reports say.

The aircraft came down near the Campo Felice ski station after picking up an injured skier.

The reports said the rescue was not related to a recent avalanche in the same area.

A spokesperson for the civil protection agency said it was aware of a helicopter incident but had no details.

State broadcaster Rai said a rescue team had been flown in from the Penne operations headquarters, where the avalanche rescue is being coordinated.</s>A emergency relief helicopter believed to be carrying six people crashed in a mountainous area of central Italy on Tuesday but there was no immediate information about possible casualties, Italian media said.

A spokesperson for the civil protection department said that according to first reports it had picked up a person injured in a skiing accident.

The accident happened on the other side of Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain range about 100 km from the site of a massive rescue operation following last week’s avalanche that buried a hotel in the same region of Italy.

Italian media reported that the helicopter was heading back to a hospital in the provincial capital of L’Aquila after picking up the injured skier.</s>ROME
• A helicopter taking an injured skier to hospital has crashed against a mountain in central Italy, killing all six people on board, officials said. The accident was a further blow to an area struggling to emerge from many days of heavy snowfall, a series of earthquakes and an avalanche last week that killed at least 17 people, with 12 still missing.

The cause of the crash on Tuesday was not immediately clear, though television images from the site, which showed that only the rear of the helicopter remained intact, were occasionally blurred by fog.

Mayor Gianluca Marrocchi of the nearby town of Lucoli told RAI state television that he had seen the helicopter and had wondered "why it was flying so low".

The helicopter was taking the skier from Campo Felice, a ski resort in the Apennine Mountains, when it went down, said the National Agency for Flight Safety, which ordered a probe and sent a team to the site. It said in a statement that the area is difficult to reach because of "adverse meteorological conditions".

The news dealt a fresh blow to the Abruzzo region, where rescuers have been involved in countless operations over the last week after heavy snow and power cuts isolated many towns and an avalanche demolished a hotel following strong quakes on Wednesday last week.

The death toll rose to 17 on Tuesday after the body of a woman was removed from the ruins of the hotel. Twelve people are still missing, while nine were rescued last week. Two of the people who died in the helicopter had searched for survivors at the hotel, a spokesman for the Civil Protection Agency said.

Mr Luciano D'Alfonso, president of the Abruzzo region, sent his condolences to the families of the victims via Twitter. He said he was praying "for the end of the sequence of tragic events that has struck Abruzzo".

Rescuers continued to search for survivors at the Hotel Rigopiano.

A spokesman for the Italian fire service, Mr Luca Cari, said rescue operations were carefully planned using diagrams of the hotel and taking into account the impact of the avalanche. "We are continuing to search, but we are not finding people alive," he said.</s>A helicopter carrying six people has crashed in thick fog in Italy.

The aircraft came down in a mountainous area close to where a hotel was destroyed by an avalanche last week.

Rescue teams are now desperately trying to reach the crash site which is close to Campo Felice.

It is believed the helicopter had just picked up a person injured while skiing and crashed from a height of about 600 metres.

It is not known how seriously injured those onboard are.

State broadcaster RAI said the helicopter had been picking up a person injured in a skiing accident.

It is not thought to be linked to a rescue operation following last week's avalanche that buried a hotel in the same region of Italy.

The avalanche buried the Hotel Rigopiano at about 5pm last Wednesday afternoon.

Five bodies have so far been recovered - and a further 24 people are still missing.

The 120,000 tonne avalanche hit the hotel at about 100km/h (60mph) - giving people little chance to take shelter.

It's now known that many of the hotel guests had already gathered together on the ground floor to await help after earthquakes in the region earlier that day.

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Follow us on Twitter @DailyMirror - the official Daily Mirror & Mirror Online Twitter account - real news in real time.

We're also on Facebook/dailymirror - your must-see news, features, videos and pictures throughout the day from the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Mirror Online.</s>PENNE, Italy (AP) — A helicopter ferrying an injured skier off the slopes slammed Tuesday into a mountainside in central Italy with at least six people aboard, another tragedy to hit a region slammed by recent earthquakes, heavy snowfall and an avalanche.

Poor visibility had slowed the arrival of rescue crews, and when they reached the scene they found the helicopter smashed into pieces in the snow.

Italy's civil protection agency spokesman Luigi D'Angelo said unconfirmed information indicates there were six or seven people aboard, including the skier, medical personnel and flight crew. The helicopter was taking the injured skier from the Campo Felice ski area to the Abruzzo regional capital of L'Aquila, he said.

The mayor of nearby Lucoli, Gianluca Marrocchi, said he had seen the helicopter and wondered why it was flying so low.

"After that it disappeared in the fog," he told RAI state TV.

The area is in Abruzzo, the same mountainous region where emergency crews have been working around the clock to recover victims of the powerful Jan. 18 avalanche that crushed a hotel.</s>The rescue was not related to last week's avalanche that engulfed a hotel nearby, killing at least 15 people.

Rescue teams reached the wreckage "and they found the bodies of the six deceased in the snow", a police spokesman told the AFP news agency.

The helicopter was taking the injured skier to hospital in L'Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo province.

Some witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion before it crashed.

Gianluca Marrocchi, mayor of the nearby town of Lucoli, said he saw the helicopter flying very low. "After that it disappeared in the fog," he told RAI state TV.

Campo Felice is a small skiing resort popular with day-trippers from Rome, which is 120km (75 miles) to the west.

It is on the other side of Italy's 3,000m Gran Sasso mountain range from the four-star Hotel Rigopiano, which was engulfed by an avalanche on 18 January triggered by a series of earthquakes. Fourteen people remain unaccounted for there.</s>ROME (Reuters) - A medical emergency helicopter carrying six people crashed in a mountainous area of central Italy on Tuesday and local television reported that all those aboard were killed.

Video from the scene showed the front half of the helicopter completely destroyed on a snowy, fog-shrouded slope.

The accident happened on the other side of Italy's Gran Sasso mountain range about 100 km (62 miles) from the site of last week's avalanche that buried a hotel and killed at least 15 people.

The helicopter involved in Tuesday's accident was not part of ongoing rescue operations at the hotel. Instead, it was on its way to a hospital in the provincial capital of L'Aquila after picking up an injured skier.
An Italian rescue helicopter, carrying an injured skier from Gran Sasso d'Italia, crashes amid thick fog, killing six people.