ACCIDENT investigators were yesterday searching the site of a helicopter crash in Perthshire in which a North-East man died.

Police last night named one of the victims as Edward Lapsley, 56, of Rowlands Gill, near Newcastle. Another man, from Glasgow, also died.

The Bell Jet Ranger 206B helicopter came down in a field beside the A94 Coupar Angus to Forfar road near the village of Meigle at 10am on Wednesday.

It left Cumbernauld Airport, near Glasgow, about an hour before on a flight to Aberdeen.

The helicopter, which was built in 1969, is registered to a company in Newmachar, Aberdeenshire.

Air accident investigators were sent to the scene from their base in Farnborough.

Senior police officers briefed them before they headed for the crash site. Debris from the aircraft was spread over a wide area and Tayside Police asked people to stay away while experts examined the scene.

Witness Craig Penney, from Arbroath, said: "As I came almost level with the helicopter, where it had crossed towards the field, pieces seemed to fall away from it and then it seemed to fall to pieces in mid-air and basically fell to the ground.

"I rang the emergency services and was speaking to them for a few minutes and then they asked me to go down to the site and I just found the wreckage of the helicopter.

"There was no one in the cabin of the helicopter, but there were two bodies some distance from the main wreckage site."

The National Grid confirmed it had hired the helicopter.