Seven people have died in an air crash over a glacier favoured by off-piste skiers on the northwestern Italian Alps while a survivor is being investigated.
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The accident, involving a helicopter and a small aircraft, took place on Friday afternoon over the Rutor glacier, located near the French border in the Valle d'Aosta region.
The Rutor is next to the La Thuile ski resort, and it is used by heli skiers, people who ski or snowboard off-piste using helicopters to reach the slopes rather than ski lifts or chair lifts.
On the aircraft, a Belgian and another man resident in France but whose nationality had not been ascertained died, while a Frenchman survived, a police spokesman said.
Rescue doctors Paolo Comune and Luca Cavoretto said in a press conference that the two survivors were in intensive care with multiple fractures, but not in life-threatening conditions.
The French survivor is a 55-year-old flight instructor and the other two were his students.
Italian news agency ANSA quoted Aosta chief prosecutor Paolo Fortuna saying he was investigating the instructor for alleged manslaughter and had questioned him in a hospital intensive care unit.
ANSA says the instructor reportedly was sitting in the rear of the plane and his students were in front.
Guardia di Finanza commander Delfino Viglione told RAI public radio the aircraft came from France and seemingly "crossed into Italian territory without communicating it to Italian air traffic control".
Among those who were on the helicopter, three German men and a German woman died, a spokesman for the Italian border police, the Guardia di Finanza, told dpa.
They were a mountain guide and three ski tourists. The helicopter's pilot, an Italian, was also killed in the crash, while a fourth German tourist, a man, survived.
Australian Associated Press
