Ive just seen the story on the news here, looks like a squirrel from the wreckage seen on TV.
Four apparently killed, May they RIP... <img src="frown.gif" border="0"> <img src="frown.gif" border="0">
. .:-. .Horrified skiers watch rescue helicopter crash in French resort . . . .mardi 19 février - 19h38 . . . .GRENOBLE, France, Feb 19 (AFP) - Skiers in a popular French mountain resort looked on in horror Tuesday as a rescue helicopter clipped a cable and crashed metres (yards) from a crowded restaurant, killing all four on board.. .Officials said the victims were a 49-year-old Dutch woman who was being flown off the ski slope after injuring her back and three French rescue workers -- a member of the ski patrol, the pilot and the co-pilot.
The accident happened at lunchtime during the school vacation period, a short distance from the packed restaurant and ski lifts in the resort of Flaine in the southeastern Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps.
"The helicopter only just missed the establishment. He (the pilot) must have sacrificed his life and those of his passengers to avert disaster because there was a lot of people on the terrace," the owner of the Chalet de Bissac restaurant, Claudine Descombes, told AFP.
Local mayor Marc Iochum also praised the "extraordinary cool-headedness" of the pilot, who was in his forties.
The resort is popular with skiers from across Europe and witnesses said the mountainside was busy at the time of the crash because of fine weather.
"We heard a loud noise and we turned and saw the helicopter out of control and heading literally to the restaurant," said Fabrice Abgrall, a vacationing radio journalist who was eating lunch with his wife and children on the terrace at the time.
"It finally crashed just next to us, 20 or 30 metres away," he said.
Regional state prosecutor Vincent Le Pannerere said the privately owned helicopter hit a "catex" cable used to transport explosives used to set off controlled avalanches just after collecting the injured woman.
An investigation has been opened to determine whether the pilot, who was very experienced, had failed to notice the clearly marked cable or whether a mechanical malfunction caused him to lose control of the helicopter.
A makeshift chapel was set up at the crash site for the victims, identified as Dutch citizen Maureen Hoenders-Apon, pilot Patrice Couturier, co-pilot Pascal Bourgeonnier and ski patrol member Emmanuel Monin, who was in his twenties.. . . .<a href="http://www.tf1.fr/news/monde/0,,890293,00.html" target="_blank">www.tf1.fr/news/monde/0,,890293,00.html</a>