Army Officials Probe Crash Site for Copter Parts

Military investigators set up camp Friday in a North Texas pasture where an Army helicopter crashed after catching fire in flight, killing 10 soldiers and injuring eight.

A special investigative team from Ft. Rucker, Ala., searched in a light mist for pieces of the twin-rotor CH-47D Chinook, a cargo helicopter with a history of mechanical problems.

“We don’t have any information about what happened on board. What we’re telling . . . is that the Army is investigating the crash, but anything else I tell you would be either rumor or speculation,” said Capt. Michael Monnett of Ft. Hood, north of Austin.

A soldier who leaped 35 feet from the burning craft before it crashed Thursday told authorities that a fire had broken out at its tail.

Army officials at Ft. Hood and Ft. Sill, Okla., would not comment on reports that the helicopter had undergone repairs hours before it crashed in Wise County, about 50 miles northwest of Ft. Worth.

Toll Mounts to 10

The death toll reached 10 Friday when a soldier died at an Army medical center in San Antonio.

Monnett said five crew members from Ft. Sill had flown the craft to Ft. Hood, about 300 miles away, to pick up 13 soldiers for training at the Oklahoma post. The helicopter went down about two-thirds of the way through the return flight.

A Pentagon source, who asked that his name not be used, said Army officials had been told “there was some maintenance work done on the ground after the Chinook landed at Ft. Hood. But whether that’s germane to anything remains to be seen.”

Maj. Phil Soucy, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said no orders had been issued to ground the CH-47s. The Army grounded its entire fleet of 63 Chinooks for 1 1/2 months in 1985 after an accident injured eight soldiers.