Race against weather, ice, to retrieve sunken chopper from frigid Arctic waters

GATINEAU, Que. – A remote-control vehicle has located a sunken Canadian Coast Guard helicopter that crashed during a routine ice patrol in the Arctic Ocean, killing three men.

The Transportation Safety Board says in a release that the vehicle has found the Messerschmitt Bo-105 chopper that went down Sept. 9 in the M’Clure Strait.

The board says a team consisting of the Coast Guard, the TSB and others is working to recover the wreckage.

The goal is to retrieve the helicopter as quickly as possible, but the board says ice and weather conditions pose a significant challenge to the operation and the safety of those involved.

The commander of the icebreaker Amundsen was among those killed in the crash.

Post-mortem examinations have suggested the men likely survived the impact, but later died of hypothermia after being in the frigid water for about one hour.