14 Believed Dead in Baltic Copter Crash

A helicopter carrying 14 people, including two Americans, crashed in the Baltic Sea off Estonia on Wednesday, and all aboard were believed to be dead.

The U.S.-made Sikorsky S-76, operated by the Finnish firm Copterline, was on a commercial flight from Tallinn, the Estonian capital, to Helsinki, the capital of Finland, when it went down near the Estonian island of Nais Saar, about three miles off the coast, officials said.

Pictures from an underwater robot sent to the wreckage on the seabed, about 160 feet down, showed bodies inside, rescue spokesman Aivar Murikse said.

“It seems like everybody is inside,” Murikse said.

He said the hull was nearly intact but that the front windows were shattered. “Probably they died at the impact moment,” he said.

Divers would try to recover the bodies today, officials said.

Kairi Leivo, a spokeswoman at the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki, said the two pilots were Finns and that the passengers consisted of six Finns, four Estonians and the two U.S. citizens.

Officials did not release the names of those on board, but a family member identified the Americans as Lydia Riis Hamburgen, 86, of Rochester, Minn., and her daughter Mary Elizabeth Hamburgen, 46, of Rolling Hills Estates, Calif. The two were in Estonia for a wedding, said Arthur Hamburgen, Lydia’s husband and Mary Elizabeth’s father.

Strong winds were reported on the Baltic, but Estonian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Jaana Aduson said winds where the crash occurred were weaker.