AFP/LimaPeru police and the air force searched yesterday for a helicopter that went missing three days earlier with 14 South Koreans, Europeans and Peruvians on board in the country’s southeast, officials said. After storms had hampered rescue missions since the Sikorsky S-58 helicopter vanished in a mountain region on Wednesday, good weather finally allowed two helicopters to leave Cusco International Airport. They headed for the remote Hualla Hualla region, the last point of contact with the aircraft, at an altitude of over 4,500m (14,760ft). Two mountain brigades were on the ground about 2km (1.2 miles) from where the HeliCusco chopper was believed to be located, police said. Rain and snow had been major obstacles to the rescue workers until now. The helicopter lost contact with its base in Hualla Hualla between the towns of Ocongate and Marcapata, near the snowcapped Apu Colque Cruz peak. On board were eight South Koreans, a Czech, a Swede, a Dutch citizen and three Peruvians - two of them crew - according to owner HeliCusco. In Seoul, the foreign ministry said the South Koreans were engineers and officials from four South Korean companies on their way back to Cusco after conducting aerial surveillance on a possible site for a hydroelectric project near Puno in southern Peru. Two officials from the South Korean embassy in Lima were in Cusco to monitor the search and rescue operations. According to the US National Transportation Safety Board, there were seven helicopter accidents in Peru from 2007 to 2011, including three fatal. Three of the crashes were near Cuzco. Helicopter experts say safety has steadily improved over the years worldwide, in part due to better technologies that help pilots cut through bad weather and dangerous terrain. Human factors, such as complacency, remain the top reason for crashes.