'No hope' for missing Canadians

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Canada says there is no longer any hope of finding alive 16 people missing in a helicopter crash off Newfoundland, and the search has been called off.

Rescuers scoured the area after the S-92 Sikorsky plunged into icy sea waters on Thursday morning but found only one survivor and one dead body.

Survival suits would have enabled those aboard to survive 24 hours at most.

The helicopter crashed some 55km (35 miles) south-east of St John's, while ferrying workers to an oil rig.

Rescuers were unable to pick up signals from locator beacons attached to the suits of the 16 people missing.

Officials earlier said strong winds and high waves had hampered rescue efforts.

Flights suspended

"The likelihood of finding survivors is no longer there," said rescue official Major Denis McGuire in the Newfoundland capital, St John's.

He said the rescue operation would officially become a missing persons case from 1930 local time (2200 GMT) on Friday.

Earlier a "debris field" was identified on the surface of the sea and two empty life rafts were found.

The helicopter sent out a distress call at 0918 (1148 GMT) on Thursday in mild weather, said Rick Burt of charter company Cougar Helicopters, the aircraft's operator.

"The aircraft was on its way out, experienced technical problems, radioed in that it was turning around and that was the last that we had communication," Mr Burt.

It was ferrying workers from St John's to oil platforms in the Hibernia and White Rose oil and gas fields, some 200 miles (320km) and 217 miles respectively south-east of the coast of the province of Newfoundland.

Cougar has suspended all offshore flights until it knows the cause of the crash.