Four Turkish nationals are among seven people missing after a helicopter disappeared from radars on Thursday in Italy’s Lucca. A Turkish company later announced that the Turks were its employees.
The helicopter, an Augusta Koala AW119, disappeared shortly after takeoff from Capannori Tassignano airport in Lucca, heading to Treviso. The others aboard were reportedly two Lebanese nationals and the helicopter’s Italian pilot. Media outlets reported that the helicopter went missing somewhere along the border of the Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna regions and a search was called off when darkness set in later on Thursday. The search and rescue efforts resumed Friday morning.
The helicopter was hired by a household chemical manufacturer, and an executive from the company told Italian news agency ANSA that the helicopter might not have crashed as it did not send out an emergency signal.
The Turks on board were the employees of Eczacıbaşı, the Turkish conglomerate announced in a written statement on Friday. The company, a leading maker of paper tissues, said four people were in Italy to attend a paper technologies fair. "We are unable to reach our four colleagues working at Eczacıbaşı Consumer Products who had boarded a helicopter to visit a paper tissue factory in Italy," the company said, noting that they found out that the helicopter disappeared from radar somewhere near Modena. "A search is underway by Italian authorities and our crews in Turkey and Italy are in touch with our Foreign Ministry and local Italian authorities," the company said.
In a written reply to journalists' inquiries about the incident, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç said the embassy in Rome and consulate in Milan were in close contact with Italian authorities on the issue. Bilgiç said Italian crews specialized in search and rescue were conducting the efforts to find the helicopter, adding that Turkey was looking forward to the safe and sound recovery of all passengers and crew in the helicopter.
Eczacıbaşı lost two executives, along with three businesspeople who were the company’s guests, when a company helicopter that took off from Atatürk Airport in Istanbul crashed in the city’s Büyükçekmece district on March 10, 2017.