MOSCOW AP A Russian helicopter Tuesday rescued a three-man television crew that had been stranded on a remote Arctic island by bad weather and was running out of food and other supplies officials said. The helicopter evacuated the trio which included a Russian a Japanese and an Australian who had been making a documentary on polar bears. The crew was taken to the port of Pevek the Ministry of Emergency Situations said. There were conflicting reports on who organized the rescue. Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said the rescue was organized by his agency using an Mi-8 helicopter hired from a private airline. But the international medical emergency company AEA International SOS said it had organized the rescue according to Mark Crawford the company's spokesman in Australia. ``They're in fair spirits'' Crawford said of the crew. ``They're surviving of course but they were down to their last three days of food.'' Crawford said his company had been hired to conduct the rescue by the filmmakers' employer Natural History Pty. Ltd. in New Zealand. The film crew arrived on Wrangel Island on Sept. 2 and intended to leave Oct. 15 but were delayed by bad weather. The weather also prevented the Emergency Situations Ministry from sending a rescue helicopter. The three were holed up in a cabin on the island's northeast coast about 550 kilometers 350 miles west of Alaska. Their food supplies were running out raising concerns about the men. Residents of a village about 130 kilometers 80 miles from the hut attempted to take emergency supplies to the crew but were defeated by bad weather. The temperature on the island has been around minus 30 Celsius minus 22 Fahrenheit with strong winds. The Japanese crew member Tatsuhiko Kobayashi developed complications from a recent eye operation Russia's ORT television reported. Emergency officials earlier offered to try to rescue the crew by snow tractor but the three reportedly turned down the offer because they would have been forced to leave most of their equipment behind ORT television reported. Kobayashi is an employee of NHK the Japanese television company. The Australian is cameraman John McGuiness. They were accompanied by Russian researcher Nikita Ovsyannikov. ren/ren APW19981201.0396.txt.body.html APW19981201.0788.txt.body.html