UN helicopter crashes killing 24

A Russian chartered MI-8 helicopter has crashed in eastern Sierra Leone killing all of the three-man crew and 21 passengers on board, UN officials said on Tuesday. The helicopter left the Hastings airfield in Freetown at about 08:00 GMT on Tuesday for a "routine supply trip" to Yengema in Kono district, eastern Sierra Leone, acting United Nations Assistance Mission in Sierra Leone spokesperson Sheila Dallas told IRIN. "We had a helicopter that flew overhead and saw the wreckage burning, and confirmed, yes, that our helicopter did go down," said Dallas. UNAMSIL air operations centre lost radio contact with the flight at 09:17 GMT. Fifty minutes later, three UNAMSIL helicopters were dispatched on a search and rescue mission. "The helicopter crashed into one of the granite mountains, in an area that was not accessible by helicopter or by vehicles," Dallas explained. The military search team had to continue to the scene of the wreckage on foot. They confirmed that it was a UN helicopter burning and that none of the passengers or crew had survived, she said. The cause of the crash remains unknown. “We are trying to get the bodies out, and to pick up different parts of the helicopter so that we can have a thorough investigation to find out what really happened," said Dallas. The dead are believed to include the three Russian crew members, some Pakistani Peacekeepers, a number of Sierra Leoneans and NGO workers. Aid workers and UN peacekeeper personnel routinely use helicopters in the absence of good roads. The New York head office of the United Nations said on Tuesday that it had opened a special investigation into the cause of the crash. UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, issued his condolences to the families governments of the dead. Over 11,000 peacekeepers from 31 countries remain in Sierra Leone, helping the restoration of peace in the country, which recently emerged from a brutal ten year civil war.