At a press conference, Yusri said the victim has been identified as Richard Chan, 58, a pilot who worked for a private firm.

His body has been taken to Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun in Ipoh for a post-mortem.

“The Royal Malaysian Air Force (TUDM) crew informed (us) that it was believed the victim died at the site,” he said, adding that Chan’s family members have been informed.

He also said there was no sign at the site that any explosion or fire had occurred during the incident.

Earlier today, transport minister Wee Ka Siong said the pilot had been found alive at the site and was being recovered to be moved to a hospital in Ipoh.

The privately owned Eurocopter EC120B helicopter had taken off from Subang airport at 11.37am yesterday for a general flight to Ipoh, where it was expected to land at 12.37pm.

Contact was lost at 12.16pm and a rescue operation was launched in southern Perak.

Yesterday, the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) said the helicopter had been shown on radar as suffering a sharp loss of altitude in less than a minute.

However, he said no distress calls were heard from the pilot as controllers tried to make contact.

Rescue operations were suspended at 8pm yesterday because of bad weather and resumed this morning.

Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh also chimed in on the incident, saying that the seemingly contradictory reports on the pilot’s status “must have been traumatising for his loved ones”.

Meanwhile, in a Facebook post just after noon, Wee clarified that “early indications” showed that the victim was alive when the crash site was first detected at 8.18am.

“However, we were informed that the victim had reportedly lost consciousness during the rescue and was attended to by rescuers. The authorities are awaiting confirmation from the hospital on the cause of death.”

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