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| A Russian-made
MI-17, similar to the one in this photo, crashed approximately
780 miles south of Hanoi killing 16. |
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Bodies Recovered in Vietnam
Crash
Associated Press
THANH TRACH, Vietnam (AP) - Officials recovered the
bodies of seven Americans and nine Vietnamese a day after they were killed
in a helicopter crash while searching for the remains of servicemen
missing in action from the Vietnam War.
It took about half an hour
on Sunday to carry the bodies down the mountain where the Russian-made
MI-17 helicopter crashed in central Vietnam.
Those killed were the
advance team for a 95-member Hawaii-based American group that was
scheduled to begin work at six MIA recovery sites in Vietnam in early May,
said Army Lt. Col. Franklin Childress, spokesman for the MIA task force.
Officials were investigating the cause of Saturday's accident,
which killed all 16 on board. A local official said the team had called to
say they were canceling a stop in Dong Hoi, the capital of Quang Binh
province, because of bad weather.
The helicopter smashed into the
side of the mountain and broke into badly charred chunks. Small crowds of
villagers watched from the valley as officials recovered bits of wreckage
strewn over the mountain.
The identities of the victims were not
immediately released until their families could be notified. Their bodies
were driven in ambulances to Hanoi, and were to be returned to Hawaii
later in the week.
Childress said no decision has been made
whether the MIA mission would go on. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld said the overall program accounting for MIAs and recovering their
remains will continue.
The helicopter was a Vietnamese military
aircraft and its pilot was Vietnamese.
``We've been flying in this
type of helicopter for a number of years, and this is the first
accident,'' Childress said in Hawaii. ``Every mission is a dangerous
mission. It's a very difficult area to operate in.''
The Foreign
Ministry called the accident ``a huge loss to Vietnam as well as to the
United States'' and sent deep condolences to the U.S. government, people
and families of the victims.
The Joint Task Force-Full Accounting,
based in Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, has searched for MIA remains from the
Indochina War in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China since 1992,
and in recent years has expanded operations to include World War II and
Korean War MIA recovery cases.
Vietnamese police confirmed on
Sunday earlier U.S. military reports that the helicopter was carrying 16
people. Initially, they had reported that 20 people were aboard.
The sky was hazy when the helicopter crashed at mid-afternoon near
Thanh Trach in Quang Binh province's Bo Trach district, officials said.
The area is about 280 miles south of Hanoi.
Since 1973, the
remains of 591 American service members formerly listed as unaccounted for
have been identified and returned to their families. There are 1,992
Americans still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia, including
1,498 in Vietnam.
Quang Binh province was the southernmost
province of North Vietnam during the war, just north of the former
demilitarized zone. It contains many military crash sites because it was
heavily bombed during the war.
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On the Net:
Pacific Command Web site: http://www.pacom.mil
Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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