THE remote area where the helicopter crashed is part of a large military training area.

The scrubby pasture, about four miles from Richmond, is dotted with small wooded areas, and the road beyond the hamlet of Brokes is punctuated with military warning signs and tank turning areas.

The area provides an almost 360-degree view of some of the region's most dramatic countryside, with the top of Calver Hill, in Swaledale, visible to the west, and the fells that sweep down to Richmond in the east.

But yesterday, all eyes were on a different view.

The wreckage of the helicopter is just visible from the moorland road, about half a mile away. It lies in a two-acre field on its side, in three parts, with the rotor blades smashed and the tail severed.

Onlookers, including members of the media who gathered at the site yesterday, repeatedly marvelled that anyone had survived the impact.

The field is cordoned off with plastic yellow tape, and military police Redcaps and uniformed officers from the civilian police guard the gate.

Floodlights, brought in by the Army to aid the rescue, remain in place, alongside a neat row of five canvas Army tents.

Portable toilets and a supply of water has been brought in.

Lanes and tracks in the area are sealed off, with an officer and a squad car at the junction of each.

About 300 yards from the wreckage, a square patch behind a row of stone farm buildings has been turned into an incident centre, with a mobile police office, support vehicles and teams from the Ministry of Defence, North Yorkshire Police, the Army, RAF and the Royal Military Police.

The activity at the site was described by rescuers on Wednesday night, shortly after the crash, as a "sea of blue flashing lights" but, by yesterday, the atmosphere was one of waiting calmly for the investigation to begin.

A grey RAF Merlin helicopter, which ferried in the investigators at 6pm, circled the crash site several times so they could assess the terrain and take aerial photographs.

The team of six then walked the ground before they started their detailed search for evidence of what went wrong.

As well as combing through the wreckage and interviewing survivors, they will look at the Puma's history, its flying hours and the weather at the time of the accident.

The investigators, from RAF Benson, will stay at the scene 24 hours a day until their examination, which could take many weeks, is complete.

RAF spokesman Squadron Leader Rodney Burges said it was too early to speculate on what caused the accident.

He said: "The investigation has to be painstaking -less haste, more speed. We cannot afford to skip anything because then we start making mistakes.

"The guys who are on the board of inquiry will take the investigation from start to finish.

"That job has priority over anything else."

Among the first on the scene of Wednesday's crash were members of Swaledale Mountain Rescue Team, who were on a training exercise a kilometre away.

Team medic Dr William Lumb treated casualties after they were assessed by an Army doctor. The team's rescue controller, Dave Rutter, said: "We were practising search techniques and we were just finishing up and having a debriefing when it was very apparent that there had been a big accident. We raced down the track and realised that it was a major incident.

"The area was a sea of blue flashing lights and my job was to set up a control point.

"Because of the fading light, it was difficult at first to recognise what sort of aircraft it was. There were bits of wreckage and debris all over."

Councillor Melva Steckles, leader of Richmondshire District Council, was an observer on the mountain rescue team's exercise.

She said: "The team was just packing up when one of the men came out of the woods and said that there had been a noise and a slight thump. It was as if the helicopter had just dropped rather than crashed."

A farmer's wife described the tragedy as "an accident waiting to happen".

Gill Farrow, 58, from Waitwith Bank Farm, said: "The MoD are often doing exercises here and it is sometimes worrying. The helicopters do fly very low and, on Wednesday, seemed to be flying even lower than normal."

Colin Brown, who farms at Hudswell, said that one helicopter flew so low that he could see the crew clearly. He said: "I waved at one, telling him to pull up a bit, I was worried about them.