Investigation begins intoVietnam chopper crash
Bad weather or technical problems could be to blame for a helicopter crash that killed 16 people searching for Americans missing from the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese official said today.
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 US Defence Department said seven of itsmilitary personnel and nine Vietnamese were reported killed.
The 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.
All 16 bodies have been recovered from the crash site about 450 km (280 miles) south of Hanoi. They are being taken by road to the capital.
A local government official said it was very misty at the time of the crash and people had heard the helicopter engine labouring.
They first heard the sound of the helicopter engine, then it quietened down a bit. 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," he said."The weather was bad too."
A US embassy spokesman said he had no information on the cause of the crash.