Death toll in helicopter crash in Italy raises to 6

The number of victims in the crash of a U.S. Army helicopter in Italy raised to six. A U.S. service member died overnight in a northern Italian hospital.

Photo: Death toll in helicopter crash in Italy raises to 6

Eleven U.S. servicemen from the Army and Air Force were on board the UH-60 Army Black Hawk helicopter when it went down Thursday near the city of Treviso, U.S. Army Europe said in a statement released by its headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany.

Italian rescue services said they pulled four bodies from the wreckage, and the U.S. Army said a fifth person died later in hospital. In a statement later Friday, the Army confirmed the sixth death.

The sixth person died Thursday around 10:00 p.m. (2100GMT) at Treviso's hospital, hospital spokesman Fabio Bruno said. "He was in serious hemorrhagic shock when he arrived," he said. "He didn't make it."

Three survivors, one in serious condition, were being treated in Treviso, while two others were hospitalized in nearby towns, Bruno told The Associated Press by telephone.

Television footage showed the charred remains of the chopper, which broke into at least two pieces, smoldering in a swampy field.

The helicopter, attached to 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment, crashed around midday about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southwest of Aviano, the U.S. Army statement said.

A spokesman at the U.S. Air Force base in Aviano, near Venice, Senior Airman Justin Weaver, said the helicopter involved had taken off from the base.

The Army statement said the chopper was on a training flight. The mission also included a re-enlistment ceremony, it said without elaborating.

Aboard were four Army soldiers as crew and seven Air Force airmen as passengers, according to the statement. The names of the victims were being withheld pending notification of their families. The cause of the crash was under investigation, it said.