News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Weather Cited In Helicopter Crash

Date: April 08, 2001

"Weather, Engine Cited in Vietnam Chopper Crash
By David Brunnstrom

HANOI (Reuters) - Bad weather or technical problems could be to blame for a helicopter crash that killed 16 people, including seven U.S. military personnel, searching for Americans missing from the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese official said on Sunday.

The Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter chartered from the Vietnamese air force's Northern Flight Service Co, crashed into a rocky hillside in Bo Trach district of central Vietnam's Quang Binh province on Saturday afternoon, killing all aboard.

The Pentagon (news - web sites) said seven U.S. military personnel and nine Vietnamese were reported dead. Hanoi's Foreign Ministry said the Vietnamese were seven crewmembers and two state officials.

The U.S.-Vietnamese team had been doing advance work for excavations to recover remains of some of the nearly 1,500 Americans still listed as missing in action, or MIA, from the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975.

Among those thought to have been aboard were Lt. Col. Rennie Cory, head of the U.S. MIA office in Hanoi, and Nguyen Thanh Ha, deputy director of Vietnam's office, staff at the offices said.

A police officer in Bo Trach said all 16 bodies had been recovered, from the crash site which was about 450 km (280 miles) south of Hanoi and four km (2.5 miles) from Vietnam's main north-south road, Highway One. He said they were being taken by road to the capital.

An official of the district People's Committee, or local government, said it was very misty at the time of the crash and people had heard the helicopter engine laboring.

Crashing Sound

``They first heard the sound of the helicopter engine, then it quietened down a bit,'' he told Reuters. ``Then they heard a loud roar from the engine followed by a crashing sound and then an explosion.

``We think this could have been caused by a technical problem. The weather was bad too.''

An official of the Northern Flight Service Co said the helicopter pilot was a Vietnamese air force officer. He said the cause of crash was being investigated.

A U.S. embassy spokesman said he had no information on the cause of the crash.

The people's committee official said the site was strewn with wreckage and the bodies were badly burned.

Lt. Col. Franklin Childress, spokesman for the Hawaii-based MIA effort, Joint Task Force Full Accounting, said a U.S. team was due in Hanoi to identify the U.S. victims. They will try to repatriate the remains to Hawaii next week.

The district official said the helicopter had been due to take off from the northern town of Vinh on Saturday morning but had been delayed by poor visibility. It eventually left at 3:15 p.m. (0815 GMT) en route to the central town of Hue. The flying time from Vinh to Bo Trach would have been about 25 minutes.

Deep Condolences

President Bush (news - web sites) said he was deeply saddened by the loss of American servicemen working to bring ``closure to scores of families across America.''

``Today's loss is a terrible one for our nation. Although not lost in a hostile act, like those for whom they search, they too have lived lives of great consequence, answering a calling of service to their fellow citizens.''

Vietnam's Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien expressed ``deep condolences'' to the Vietnamese and U.S. families.

The United States has made accounting for its MIAs its highest priority in relations with its former enemy Hanoi.

The crash is the latest in a series of mishaps involving U.S. military personnel, including air crashes in Britain and Germany last month and the collision of a U.S. spy plane with a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea on April 1."