Re: Fate of Navy Pilot Remains a Mystery

Date: January 12, 2004

"Fate of Navy pilot remains a mystery

By RON WORD Associated Press Writer

JACKSONVILLE -- Military search crews have returned to the crash site where Navy pilot Scott Speicher's jet crashed 13 years ago, while captured Iraqi officials, including Saddam Hussein, are being questioned about the fate of the Jacksonville fighter pilot.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who has made it a personal mission to get answers for Speicher's family and friends, said crews are actively looking for the pilot, whose plane went down on Jan. 13, 1991, in Iraq, about 100 miles north of the Saudi Arabian border.

Speicher's FA-18 Hornet was the first plane shot down over Iraq in the first Gulf War.

"I am convinced they are doing everything they can," Nelson said. "But I have to stay on the Pentagon and the administration to make sure it remains a priority with them."

Navy officials said crews have checked more than 50 sites, including hospitals, prisons, security archives, homes and the original site where the aircraft crashed, said Lt. Mike Kafka, a Navy spokesman. "The Navy remains extremely interested in information regarding Capt. Speicher."

Recently, crews revisited the crash site, where Speicher's plane had pancaked in the desert, for the first time since 1995. At that time they found the canopy, wings, unexploded ordnance, but the cockpit was missing.

Nelson said he could not comment on what, if anything, was found in the second search. Earlier, Donald Black, a spokesman for the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the search team was hoping to find Bedouin tribesmen who might have witnessed the crash.

The current search for information about Speicher's fate has been complicated by the security situation in Iraq, Nelson said. "They have to make sure they don't get ambushed."

Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said he was heartened when he heard Hussein and other high level Iraqi officials had been questioned about Speicher. Kafka said all detained officials and hundreds of lower-level officials, civilians, defectors and refugees have been questioned and will continue to be questioned.

"Sooner or later, somebody is going to talk," said Nelson, who believes Speicher could still be alive. "I hope so. With each passing day, it diminishes that possibility."

Kafka said the search has yielded thousands of documents from the Iraqi intelligence and security services that are being examined for evidence about Speicher.

Over the years, various theories have been floated about what actually happened in the darkness over Iraq.

Some believe Speicher was killed when a surface-to-air missile knocked his jet fighter from the sky on the first night of the first Gulf War. There was evidence that he ejected from his damaged aircraft.

Amy Waters Yarsinske, author of "No One Left Behind. The Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher Story," believes Speicher could still be alive in Iraq. She believes Bedouins may have rescued Speicher and cared for him for four years, until Hussein's agents spotted them with Speicher. According to her book, sources told her that Speicher was taken away and every man, woman and child in the tribe were executed.

A report to the Senate Intelligence Committee said, "We assess Lt. Cmdr. Speicher was either captured alive or his remains were recovered and brought to Baghdad."

Unless Speicher or other evidence are found in Iraq, the answers may never be known.

Speicher's cousin, Teresa Engstrom, of Minneapolis said in an e-mail, "We hold out hope that Scott is still alive. Failing that, I would hope that the family and all those wonderful supporters can at least know what happened."

"When Saddam was captured, we were so encouraged that at least the question about Scott was asked. I am still hoping that an answer will be forthcoming."

Craig Bertolett, Speicher's squadron mate, who now lives in Vienna, Va., said he believes Speicher survived the shoot down.

"While I concede there is a remote possibility that Scott survived and is still alive, the possibility still exists. So long as that possibility exists, we should pursue his repatriation with the utmost voracity," Bertolett said.

Yarsinske, a former reserve Navy intelligence officer, said she's heartened by efforts to find him. She became interested in the Speicher case while working on a series of stories about him for the Virginia Pilot.

Yarsinske said there are reasons Hussein would not want to tell U.S. investigators what he knows about Speicher. "He's a living war crime," she said in a telephone interview from her home in Norfolk, Va.

Speicher, who was 33 when he was shot down, was first declared missing in action. Later his status was changed to killed in action. A marker was placed on an empty grave at Arlington National Cemetery. In 2002, his status was changed to missing-captured.

In the past 13 years, Speicher's rank has been increased from lieutenant commander to captain. His wife, Joanne, has remarried and his children are now teenagers. They live in the Jacksonville area.

Yarsinske said she hopes Speicher's case will be resolved for the sake of his family and supporters. Search crews "are going to go the extra mile," she said. "They wouldn't be pressing this hard if he was dead."

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