Search helicopters have found the wreckage of a small plane that crashed in Antarctica carrying three Canadians.

Search crews said they were not able to land at the site but that nobody could have survived the crash.

Two helicopters reached the site late Saturday after bad weather thwarted rescue efforts for three days. Crews said the wreckage was on a very steep slope near the summit of a mountain in the Queen Alexandra range and it wasn't possible to land there.

The propeller-driven de Havilland Twin Otter was flying from a U.S. station near the pole to an Italian research base in Terra Nova Bay when it disappeared Wednesday.

One of the men aboard was Bob Heath from the Northwest Territories, an experienced pilot in both the Antarctic and Arctic.