Five Dead In Vegas Tourist Helicopter Crash

Five people have been killed in a helicopter crash on the border of Nevada and Arizona in the US.

The aircraft came down in the River Mountains surrounding Lake Mead, according to National Park Service spokesman Andrew Munoz.

The crash site is about 30 miles from the Las Vegas Strip and is not accessible by road.

The helicopter, operated by Sundance Helicopters, was on a sightseeing tour of the Hoover Dam before heading back to Las Vegas, a company spokesman said.

He told FOX5 News there were five people on board, including the pilot.

Emergency crews rushed to the scene of the accident by a water treatment plant near Lakeshore Road, south of Lake Mead's Las Vegas Bay.

Police spokesman Bill Cassell told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the first reports of the crash came in at 4:54pm local time.

"We have reliable information that a bird is on the ground out there," Mr Cassell said, adding that the pilot had not been heard from.

A spokesperson from the Federal Aviation Administration told FOX5 that the downed helicopter was believed to be an Aerospatiale AS350.

A September 2003 crash of a Sundance Helicopters flight killed its pilot and six passengers in Arizona.

Unsafe flying procedures and misjudgment were cited as the probable cause of that crash.

On its website, the company boasts aerial filming credits for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the films Oceans 11 and Oceans 13, among others.