The wreckage of a helicopter chartered by the Red Cross that went missing four months ago with seven Turkmen on board has been found near the Afghan capital, a Red Cross spokesman said on Friday.An Afghan government official said pilots who spotted the plane wreckage also reported seeing five bodies, some still trapped in the wreckage, which was found in the northeastern province of Kapisa. "We've spotted the wreckage of the chopper," the official said speaking on condition of anonymity. He said the bodies were still intact due to freezing weather in the snow-covered mountains. The official did not reveal the exact location due to security concerns. He said a police patrol first reported sighting the wreckage.
Air traffic controllers lost contact with the chopper on January 20 as it was leaving Pakistan, where it had been doing relief work after last year's October 8 earthquake, to return to its home base in Turkmenistan via Afghanistan. "It has been found in Kapisa province," Reto Stocker, the Red Cross spokesman in Afghanistan, told AFP. The province is about 65 kilometres northeast of Kabul.