All six people on board a helicopter owned by the chopper manufacturer Eurocopter died yesterday when the aircraft plunged into a mountain in southeastern France, sources said.

The bodies were recovered from near the village of La-Palud-sur-Verdon, a source close to the crash inquiry said.

Local officials had said earlier that the helicopter was an army aircraft.

A Eurocopter spokesman said the six men on board the Super Puma AS 532 AL helicopter were test pilots and engineers working for the group and that the aircraft was on a test flight before being delivered to a buyer.

It came down at around 11.45 a.m. GMT near a group of people hiking in the popular tourist area and the crash injured one of them slightly on the ankle, local officials said.

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