Search teams have recovered the bodies of six Americans who died when their plane crashed high in Afghanistan 's snow-covered mountains, according to US military officials.
The plane crashed on Saturday, but search efforts were complicated by bad weather and difficult terrain, said military spokesman Maj. Mark McCann.
Military spokesman Maj. Mark McCann
"We regret to report that all six individuals on board the aircraft - the three US civilian crew members and three US soldiers - were killed in the crash," McCann said.
He said the victims' identities would be released later by the Defense Department and Florida-based Presidential Airways, which had contracted the CASA 212 transport plane to the US Air Force.
A plane carrying the bodies of the six victims back to the United States left Bagram on Tuesday evening, bound for Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, McCann said.
"An investigation will be conducted to determine the cause of the crash. However, at this time, we have no indication this crash was caused by hostile fire," McCann said.
The bodies were found amid the debris of the plane in the Hindu Kush mountains, southeast of Bamiyan.
McCann said the plane's flight recorder had been retrieved, but it was not clear what it showed about the crash.
He said the plane crashed en route to Farah, in western Afghanistan. However, a senior US general said it was headed for Shindand, 60 miles further north.