Officials say there are "no new signs of further rescues" as search continues into the second day Friday for the 16 people that are still missing after a helicopter crashed into Atlantic off Canada.
One person has been rescued and one body recovered a few hours after the chopper crashed about 65 km southeast of St. John's, capital of Newfoundland province, at about 9:18 a.m. local time (1218 GMT) Thursday.
The chopper, carrying 18 offshore oil workers, was en route from St. John's to the Hibernia offshore oil platform.
Rescue officials said Friday morning that indications are that there are no new signs that would lead to further rescues.
"Right now [there are] no additional results. The search has come up with nothing at this point," Rick Burt, general manager of Cougar Helicopters, the company which owns the ill-fated Sikorsky S-92 plane, told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on Friday morning.
Maj. Paul Doucette of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Center in Halifax said the search will now be concentrated under the surface of the water.
"We're basically looking for any kind of hints or signs that there may be some hope in the water below," Doucette told Canadian Television.
Four surface vessels were in the search area overnight, along with two Canadian Coast Guard ships and two commercial vessels, a Hercules aircraft and a Cormorant helicopter.
Search and rescue crews used night-vision goggles, searching the seas for any sign of life.
The cause of the crash is not known, although information posted to a Transport Canada online database indicated that a mayday at 9:18 a.m. local time (1218 GMT) was called because of a "main gear box oil pressure problem."
Officials on Thursday night, however, said there is no definitive word on why the chopper -- which was returning to St. John's after it encountered mechanical problems -- went down.
The crash is the first time a helicopter carrying offshore oil workers has gone down since oil was first pumped in the area in 1997. The choppers are essentially shuttles for workers coming on and off shift.
In 1982, the then-developing industry was rocked when 84 men died when the Ocean Ranger, a drilling rig that was exploring for oil in the region, sank during a winter storm.
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2009)