A sightseeing helicopter with three people on board for a flight over Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture went missing Tuesday.
Around 11:50 a.m. that day, police received a report from an agency for Takumi Enterprise, the operator of the helicopter, that the chopper had not returned.
Fire authorities found what appears to be a heavily damaged body of a helicopter inside the mountain’s crater at around 4 p.m.
According to the Kumamoto Prefectural Police and Takumi Enterprise, based in the city of Okayama, the three on board the helicopter were the pilot in his 60s and two people believed to be from Taiwan — a man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s. The pilot is a veteran with decades of flight experience and an instructor background.
The helicopter took off from the Aso Cuddly Dominion, a sightseeing facility in the city of Aso, Kumamoto Prefecture, shortly before 11 a.m. and was scheduled to return to the facility following a 10-minute scenic flight over the crater of Mount Aso. This was the helicopter’s third flight of the day.
Fire authorities received an emergency report apparently from a passenger’s smartphone at 11:04 a.m. through a function that reacts to a strong impact.
The helicopter’s GPS signal was last detected near the mountain’s crater and has since been disconnected.
Following the incident, Takumi Enterprise grounded all of its helicopters.
In 2024, a Takumi Enterprise helicopter made an unscheduled landing after its engine output dropped while the aircraft was flying over Mount Aso, with people on board, including the pilot, suffering injuries such as bone fracture.
Aso Cuddly Dominion is a theme park complex that offers scenic flights as part of its services.
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