Age of helicopter
The same paper, Periodic de Andorra, this morning appears to contradict its earlier report on the age of the machine:
El vehicle havia estat fabricat a França i matriculat a Espanya. Va ser estrenat a Andorra el 4 de novembre de l'any passat. És a dir, només tenia set mesos i per tant, havia passat tots els controls pertinents de seguretat.
It was "estrenat" i.e. first used/ given a public outing in Andorra on 4th November (2010?) and had all its papers in order.
My command of Catalan is not sufficiently good to tell whether the report means it was a brand new craft on 4th Nov, though the paper does say "it was 7 months old" which seems to resolve my doubts; though implicitly contradicting yesterday´s reports. (Not I accept if the whole fleet was 7 months old or less.)
Eye witness reports quoted add to the theory of the sling (20m long said one person) snagging.
The claim of "local control of the investigation" undertaken by the Spanish and French aviation authorities is maintained though I, as a non-expert outsider, have my doubts on the reality of this.