They Were Touring a US Landmark. Then, Tragedy

The three people killed in a Grand Canyon helicopter crash Saturday were all British tourists, authorities say. They've been named as Becky Dobson, 27, Jason Hill, 32, and Stuart Hill, 30, the Guardian reports. Three other badly injured British tourists and their American pilot were airlifted to a hospital in Las Vegas at around 2am Sunday. Authorities say it took eight hours for the survivors to be removed from the crash scene because of high winds and rough terrain. "We are told by witnesses and also by rescuers that people trying to help once they saw this accident happen, they couldn't get down to the helicopter quick enough," local news reporter Gabby Hart told the BBC.

The survivors "had to receive care there on-site until emergency crews were able to remove them from the scene," Hart said. Photographer Teddy Fujimoto tells the Guardian that he was conducting a wedding shoot near the crash site and saw terrible scenes 600 feet below. He says he saw two women, one "pretty much burned all over." One of them kept calling out a man's name, he says. The NTSB and the FAA—which was formed after a midair collision over the Grand Canyon killed 128 people in 1956—will be investigating the crash of the Eurocopter EC130 in a stretch of the canyon so busy it has been nicknamed "Helicopter Alley," the Arizona Republic reports. (More Grand Canyon stories.)