Crew member missing as water-bombing helicopter crashes

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — A helicopter battling Indonesian wildfires crashed into a river on Sunday as it scooped water, an official told Agence France-Presse, with two crew members rescued and one still missing.

The crash in Borneo Island's South Kalimantan province was the second in days involving a firefighting helicopter, after a military chopper plunged into the waters off Borneo on Wednesday, killing three people.

Two Australian nationals had survived Sunday's incident and were "safe," said Berton Panjaitan, a spokesperson for the national disaster mitigation agency, while the third member of the crew, an Indonesian, remained unaccounted for.

Dramatic video footage showed the firefighting helicopter being slowly dragged downward after filling its bucket from the Barito River, eventually plunging nose-first into the water.

The Southeast Asian archipelago has for months been struggling to control blazes that have burned through large swathes of Sumatra, Borneo and Papua islands, causing choking haze that drifted to neighbouring Malaysia, East Timor and Singapore.

"This incident occurred while the air fleet was conducting a water-bombing operation," spokesperson Berton said of Sunday's crash.