A British man and his 12-year-old son were found dead Sunday in the Mont-Blanc massif that spreads around Europe's highest peak, rescuers said.

Their bodies were found a day after contact was last made with the 48-year-old father, who had called an emergency centre to say that his son had had a fall and was out of reach. Rescuers lost contact and launched their search with little information on the exact location of the pair.

They had ventured into the sprawling Mont-Blanc range's Bossons area without adequate equipment, Patrice Ribes, from the gendarmerie in the nearby town of Chamonix, told AFP.A helicopter spotted them at 0600 GMT on Sunday, at an altitude of 1,600 metres.