Palma.The two Britons who died when their helicopter crashed near Andratx on Saturday have been named as Alistair Evans and Mark Blaver-Mann, who was at the controls.
Both men were aged in their 50s and were prominent Poole businessmen and share a Fairline yacht which they have moored in the Port of Andratx.
The top of the range MD 500 helicopter crashed at 11.10am, just half an hour after it had taken off from Son Bonet airfield where it had been based since being flown down to the island during the summer.
Evans owned the Soho restaurant bars in Christchurch and Westbourne while Blaver-Man established, then sold, Poole-based engineering firm Powerman and a third man was due to have been on board.
Stephen Bath, the joint managing director of Bath Travel, had been invited to join the pair in Majorca.
Bath said: I had been with the pair of them with our wives just last Friday to see Alistair's new house in Canford Cliffs. He proudly showed us round his lovely house. We had a nice dinner and we ended up talking about helicopters most of the evening.
They kindly invited us out this weekend to be with them but we had a prior commitment.
If I'd been out there I would have been with them. I would never normally turn down a flight in a helicopter, he revealed.
Eye witnesses have since spoken of how they thought the pilot was looking for somewhere to land the helicopter before it came crashing to the ground, exploding in a fireball.
But it remains unclear whether the helicopter exploded before impact, there are conflicting eye witness reports.
Civil aviation experts flew to the island on Sunday to carry out an inspection of the crash site and all of the wreckage will today be transferred to Madrid where Civil Aviation will carry out a full investigation in an attempt to uncover the exact cause of the tragedy.
However, the process is very complicated and could take months or even years to conclude.
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