Missing Pilot’s Wife Told of Body Found in Wreck

A woman whose husband is missing on a flight to Angola has been told that a man’s body was found in the wreckage of the plane.

The woman, Karol Read, said she was told of the discovery by an official of Transamerica Airlines, owner of the plane which burned on an Angolan airstrip on Dec. 29 while carrying food and supplies to a remote diamond mine in the southwest African nation.

Her 38-year-old husband, William, was co-pilot of the aircraft.

The body was reportedly found in the cargo section of the burned plane--an unusual area for a co-pilot to be in.

The place in which the body was discovered stirred doubts that the victim was Read and raised the possibility that it could have been another person who obtained a ride on the aircraft.

C. J. Hall, the U.S. State Department’s country officer for Angola, confirmed that “Unita” rebels against the Angolan Marxist regime had announced capture of three of the four-member crew of the plane.

The aircraft was hit by rebel gunfire and burned after it landed on an airstrip at Cafunfo, in the diamond mining region of north Angola, Hall said.

He said Unita reported that the three--pilot Gerhart Opel of Redmond, Wash.; flight engineer Alan Bongard of Pleasanton, Calif., and loadmaster Paul Huggins of Great Britain--were being escorted to a Unita base, where they would be released to the Red Cross.

Hall said the State Department is trying to find out what happened to Read. He said Congress has prohibited the government from supporting any faction in Angola.

Karol Read said the airline told her one of its officials was allowed to examine the wreckage briefly and found the body, which was being sent to London for identification.