A helicopter carrying three French tourists disappeared in the Indian portion of Himalayan Kashmir on Friday, officials said. The three skiers, Shyvani Sauda, Diane Schlegl and Juliens Cubas, took off from a hotel in Srinagar in the morning and had not returned or been in touch with the hotel by late evening, The Associated Press quoted Basharat Ahmed, a top state official in the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, as saying. Ahmed said the trio was flying to Gund, a village 70 kilometers (44 miles) northeast of Srinagar, for heli-skiing. «We have launched rescue operations ... police and civilian authorities are checking the area,» Ahmed said, adding that an Indian Air Force helicopter was also involved in the operation.
