New York Times
HOUMA, La. — Eight people were killed and another injured Sunday when a helicopter ferrying oilfield workers to a job site went down in a marshy area of southeast Louisiana wilderness, Coast Guard officials said.
The operator of the helicopter, owned by Petroleum Helicopters Inc., based in Lafayette, La., broadcast a distress signal at 3 p.m., said Jaclyn Young, a Coast Guard spokeswoman. The United States Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Virginia picked up the signal and alerted the Coast Guard station in New Orleans, she said.
All eight bodies were recovered at or near the crash scene, Ms. Young said. The site is about a hundred miles southwest of New Orleans in a marsh crossed by canals, bayous and several tidal lakes and can be reached only by airboat.
A company spokesman, Richard Rovinelli, said the helicopter had taken off from Amelia, La.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
The survivor was taken by a Coast Guard helicopter to a hospital in Houma in critical condition and was expected to be transferred to a hospital in New Orleans.