U.S. Ends Survey at Laos Crash Site of Warplane

A U.S. military team surveyed the crash site of a U.S. plane that went down in Laos during the Vietnam War, and a joint U.S.-Laotian operation could begin within a few weeks to recover the crew’s remains, a military official said Saturday.

Lt. Col. Joe Harvey, leader of the six-man military team that surveyed the crash site, said he completed a report confirming the location of the downed propjet and listing the requirements for a proposed joint U.S.-Laotian excavation.

“I think we should be able to get started in a few weeks,” Harvey, head of the Joint Casualty Resolution Center in Hawaii, said as he returned to Bangkok after the three-day trip into Laos.

Wreckage from plane crashes in Indochina is often buried in the soft earth, and sometimes farmers recultivate the land over the debris.

According to U.S. records, the plane at the site Harvey inspected is an Air Force AC-130 gunship. Officials have declined to give details of the plane’s final mission, how or when it crashed, or the names of any of those on board when it went down more than a decade ago.

The AC-130, a converted transport plane that carried rapid-firing machine guns, was frequently used to attack Communist ground forces and supply lines in Laos.

A U.S.-Laotian team last February excavated the site where another AC-130 crashed, recovering and identifying the remains of 13 U.S. servicemen who had been listed as missing in action.

Over 2,400 Missing

More than 2,400 Americans are still listed as missing in action from the Indochina War. A total of 563 of those are believed to have disappeared in Laos, where some of the heaviest air attacks of the war took place.

The United States has increased cooperation with Laos and with Vietnam in the search for remains of missing U.S. servicemen in the last year. Increased Vietnamese cooperation is believed to be tied to Hanoi’s desire to re-establish diplomatic relations with the United States.

On Monday, high-level talks are scheduled to open in Hanoi to further improve U.S.-Vietnamese cooperation on MIAs.

Assistant Secretary of State Paul D. Wolfowitz and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage, who will head the American delegation, will be the highest-ranking U.S. officials to meet Vietnamese leaders since the Paris talks to end the Vietnam war took place in 1973.