MIA recovery mission facing rain delays
An expedition to excavate the site of a Vietnam War helicopter crash should go ahead soon or the wet season would delay recovery of any remains for another year, a former soldier warned on Wednesday.
Jim Bourke, a Vietnam veteran and president of the group Operation Aussies Home, said the government seemed reluctant to acknowledge his organisation had information about the 1971 crash site which could help its search.
"By delaying the investigation until February, it means that they will not have time to set up a forensic investigation of the site before the wet," he said.
Lance Corporal Gillespie, from Victoria, died on April 17, 1971, when a RAAF Iroquois helicopter was shot at and crashed in the Long Hai hills of Vietnam's Phuoc Tuy province.
He is one of six Australians who died in Vietnam whose bodies were never found.
As the helicopter hovered to winch aboard a wounded South Vietnamese soldier, a Viet Cong machine gun opened fire, killing Lance Corporal Gillespie and causing the aircraft to crash in flames.
A search next day found no sign of his body. It was thought to have been completely consumed by the intense blaze.
The government is mounting a mission to assess the site to determine the feasibility of a full excavation to recover any remains.
Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Billson said on Tuesday that preliminary assessment had been delayed to February because the Vietnamese government had yet to give approval.
Mr Bourke disputed the need for a detailed preliminary assessment.
He said his group found the site back in 2004, although there was not much to be seen.
"There are only a few small bits of wreckage lying around, some unexploded ordnance and ammunition from the helicopter, some fused metal on the rock which is where the helicopter burned," he said.
Mr Burke said there was no question it was the correct site. It had been confirmed by a former helicopter crewman who survived the crash and a soldier on the ground who returned the next day to collect the bodies.
"They were able to confirm the site precisely based on a waterpoint that was about 40 metres away from the crash," he said.
Mr Burke said an opinion from the US organisation responsible for recovering the remains of missing US service personnel from past wars - the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) - suggested there was up to a 50 per cent chance some remains could be recovered.
He said the government now had enough information to plan a forensic excavation.
But, he said, "They need to start working on that plan now".
AAP
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