2 U.S. Crash Sites in Laos to Be Searched
The United States and Laos will conduct a joint excavation of two U.S. aircraft crash sites trying to account for American soldiers missing in action from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon said Thursday.
The excavation of the sites in southern Laos, surveyed by U.S. and Laos officials in March and August, 1989, is scheduled to begin today, the Pentagon said in a brief statement.
About 2,300 Americans are listed as missing in action from the Vietnam War, about 545 of them in Laos. The war ended in 1975 with Communist victories in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The United States has diplomatic relations only with Laos.
In March, 1989, the Defense Department said a U.S. team found human remains at a site in Savannakhet where a CH-34 helicopter with seven crewmen crashed in 1968.
The effort marks the seventh such operation between the United States and Laos since 1985.
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