U.S. Experts Arrive to Probe Viet MIA Site

A team of U.S. experts and a planeload of heavy equipment arrived in Hanoi today to begin the first U.S.-Vietnamese joint excavation of a U.S. warplane crash site in Vietnam.

With hundreds of Vietnamese peasants watching curiously, the U.S. team drove a 21,000-pound excavator along a narrow dirt road to the crash site at Yen Thuong village, nine miles north of Hanoi, where they hope to uncover the remains of at least four American men still listed as missing in action.

The equipment includes metal detectors, water pumps, metal cutting tools and digging tools for the excavation, slated to begin Tuesday and to take at least 10 days.

The team includes four experts from the Army’s Central Casualty Identification Laboratory, two Army engineers to operate the equipment, two explosives experts in case any bombs remain in the wreckage, and a medic.

The crewmen of the B-52 bomber designated for unearthing were among the last American casualties of the Vietnam War. Their aircraft was shot down in December, 1972, during the United States’ most concentrated bombing of Hanoi and just before the peace treaty was signed.

Vietnamese officials said they believe that two of the servicemen among the six-man crew were captured and returned in a general prisoner release in 1973. The other four were not found.

The project is the first such joint operation between Washington and Hanoi. More than 2,400 Americans are listed as missing in action in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.