Copter Crash Kills 4

A University of Kentucky medical helicopter crashed shortly after takeoff in eastern Kentucky, killing all four people aboard late Monday.

The victims in Monday night's crash were two pilots, a flight nurse and a paramedic, said Mary Margaret Colliver, a spokeswoman for the UK Hospital in Lexington. Their names were not immediately released.

No patients were aboard, she said.

The Sikorsky S-76 helicopter had lifted off from the Jackson airport shortly after 10 p.m. local time on its way to Lexington, Colliver said. Airport officials later lost contact with the aircraft, she said.

The helicopter was found a few miles from Jackson, so badly wrecked that authorities had a difficult time identifying it, State Police Trooper Tim Mullins said.

Breathitt County Coroner Gene Watts said two bodies were removed from the crash site overnight.

"We still have some bodies to get out," Watts said this morning. "I'll be going back in an hour or so. It was so dark up there last night it was hard to see anything."

The Jackson-based helicopter, leased from Petroleum Helicopters Inc., was one of two used by the hospital to transport patients. It was normally in service 12 hours a day, but Colliver did not know how much it had flown Monday.

Federal investigators were expected to arrive at the crash site Tuesday, Mulling said.

Jackson is about 70 miles southeast of Lexington.