Cougar Helicopters provides shuttle services for crews flying from St. John's to offshore oil platforms. (Courtesy of Cougar Helicopters)

Recovery crews have retrieved nine bodies from the deep-sea wreckage of a helicopter that crashed off the coast of Newfoundland last Thursday, killing 17 people.

The bodies were brought back to port in St. John's early Monday on the Atlantic Osprey, an offshore supply vessel that had been helping with the recovery effort.

A total of 10 bodies have now been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, including that of oilfield worker Allison Maher, 26, whose body was recovered shortly after Thursday's crash. No other identifications have been disclosed.

Efforts continue to bring more to the surface, with help from an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV).

Mike Cunningham, lead investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, told reporters that crews using the video-equipped ROV were able to see "about 10 to 13 bodies" in the fuselage of the Cougar Helicopters aircraft, lying 178 metres below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

"That number must be taken as a guess at this time. There could be more," Cunningham told reporters.

"It is very delicate work and has to be done very carefully. It's work that could take 18 to 24 hours, if everything goes well."

The crash killed 17 of the 18 people on board the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, which had been heading to two offshore oil platforms when it crashed Thursday morning after reporting mechanical problems.

The recovery effort by crews aboard the Atlantic Osprey supply ship came on a day when prayers were being offered at churches across Newfoundland and Labrador for the passengers of the helicopter.

The sole survivor, Robert Decker, remains in critical but stable condition in hospital in St. John's.

Tributes are attached to the fencing outside Cougar Helicopters at the airport in St. John's. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Hank Williams, operations manager for the Cougar Helicopters base at St. John's airport, said the families' paramount concern is the recovery of bodies.

"[It's] very important from our perspective that the next step is to bring their people home," Williams, his voice often crackling with emotion, told a media briefing Saturday.

"Every family member that I've spoken to, that is the ultimate goal right now. That's what they want," said Williams, adding that he can still see the faces of the friends and colleagues who died Thursday.

Search crews on Saturday found the fuselage of the Sikorsky S-92 and decided to make recovery of the bodies a top priority, partly because of damage to the aircraft.

"The fuselage, it turns out, has been quite compromised by the impact with the water. It's been broken up somewhat. It's cracked up quite a bit," Cunningham said Sunday.

"The cockpit area in particular has been quite damaged. The tail boom has been broken off, but the main fuselage or cabin structure is somewhat together, with the main door off."

To raise the aircraft, the Transportation Safety Board will use a crane capable of carrying 50 tonnes. The helicopter is estimated to weigh about 10 tonnes.

Nonetheless, the work of bringing it to the surface will require careful engineering and execution, and it's expected to take all week to finish the task.

The RCMP added two more names Sunday to the list of the dead after receiving permission from their families. They have been identified as Corey Eddy, 32, of Paradise, N.L., who had originally lived in Sibley's Cove, and John Pelley, 41, of Deer Lake, N.L.

On Saturday, police identified 12 others, including two British Columbia residents, a Nova Scotia resident and nine residents of Newfoundland and Labrador. The other families as yet have not consented to releasing the remaining names.

The names released by the RCMP on Saturday were:

• Tim Lanouette, 48, Comox, B.C., the first officer on the helicopter.
• Peter Breen, 55, St. John's.
• Gary Corbett, 46, Conception Bay South.
• Wade Drake, 42, Fortune.
• Wade Duggan, 32, Witless Bay.
• Colin Henley, 38, St. John's.
• Ken MacRae, 47, Greenwood, N.S.
• Derrick Mullowney, 51, Bay Bulls.
• Burch Nash, 44, Fortune.
• Paul Pike, 49, Spaniard's Bay.
• Allison Maher, 26, Mount Pearl, formerly of Aquaforte.
• Thomas Anwyll, 46, Langley, B.C.

On Saturday, the Roman Catholic Basilica of St. John the Baptist opened its doors in St. John's to all who wanted to grieve, regardless of their religion.

"We want to be there with the people and to cry with them in their time of need as well," Archbishop Martin Currie told CBC News.

"These kinds of tragedies, when we hear about it there's a certain kind of numbness comes into our body," he said. "We gather as a people to discuss [it and] ask the whys in search for meaning in all this. Some people find there's meaning in faith, and others may search in other ways."

Meanwhile, flights remain suspended to and from the platforms working at the three offshore oilfields southeast of St. John's. Crews are being transported instead by vessel.