Crash in N. Korea Killed U.S. Pilot : Asia: Clinton presses Pyongyang for prompt return of airman’s body and of surviving flier from helicopter. Washington pushes for quick resolution of incident.

One of two pilots aboard a U.S. Army helicopter that went down after straying into North Korean airspace over the weekend was killed, the White House reported Sunday, and President Clinton pressed the Communist government in Pyongyang for the prompt return of the surviving pilot.

Chief Warrant Officer David Hilemon, 29, of Clarksville, Tenn., was killed in the Saturday crash, Clinton said in a statement. The President said Hilemon’s death was confirmed by U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), who is in the North Korean capital as part of a congressional visit.

The second pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Hall of Brooksville, Fla., is alive and apparently uninjured, Clinton said.

The President said that Richardson will continue to relay information to Secretary of State Warren Christopher and that Washington is “using all available channels to press for an early resolution of this matter.”

Richardson has asked the North Korean government to grant him prompt access to Hall and to allow him to transport Hilemon’s remains to a U.S. military facility, the White House said.

“This tragic loss of life was unnecessary. Our primary concern now is the welfare of Chief Warrant Officer Hall and his return, along with the body of Chief Warrant Officer Hilemon,” Clinton said.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of both of these dedicated aviators,” he added.

Donna Hall, wife of the surviving aviator, wept when contacted by the Associated Press at their home in Florida.

“I’m elated that my husband is safe, but my heart goes out to the family of the other man,” Hall said, crying what she described as “tears of joy.”

Hilemon’s widow, Berit, issued a statement in Tennessee saying: “I can find comfort in the fact that David died doing something he loved--flying and defending our country. He was a dedicated and loving husband, who enjoyed flying and his life as an Army aviator.

“I ask that everyone honor my wishes and respect my privacy and the privacy of the rest of David’s family during our time of grief.”

U.S. military officials were scheduled to meet today with North Korean counterparts at the truce village of Panmunjom to begin working out preliminary arrangements for the return of Hall and the remains of Hilemon. If the North Koreans agree, the negotiations will move to a higher level involving a meeting between North Korean Col. Park Im Soo and U.S. Col. Mark Shoemaker, secretaries of the U.N. Military Armistice Commission, to make the actual arrangements. The most optimistic scenario envisions the repatriation occurring in the next few days.

The daily Panmunjom meetings are the channel of contact for involved parties to manage all armistice violations, including the recent incident in which the OH-58C helicopter--a light reconnaissance craft--went down Saturday after taking off from Camp Page, 20 miles south of the DMZ.

U.S. officials still have not confirmed whether the craft was shot down, as Pyongyang said, or made an emergency landing after developing mechanical problems.

But South Korean army observation teams near the eastern end of the DMZ said they saw the craft flying at a low altitude in a valley and that it looked like it was having difficulty regaining a proper flying route, according to Seoul Broadcasting Service reports. They said the helicopter disappeared from view and radar about five minutes after it crossed the DMZ.

South Korean army officers told the newspaper Dong-A Ilbo that they saw the helicopter disappear into North Korea but heard no gunshots and saw no signs of pursuit.

Experts in Seoul speculated that the pilots may have gotten disoriented amid the mountainous, rough terrain and a recent snowfall that had covered the markers delineating the DMZ boundary. Although South Korean army officers quoted by the press in Seoul speculated that the pilots either crashed or bungled their landing, the possibility that they were shot down has not been ruled out.

South Korean soldiers are stationed in guard posts every few hundred yards along the 151-mile demarcation line zigzagging from the Sea of Japan on the east to the Yellow Sea on the west.

In a heightened war of words, North Korea accused the United States and South Korea of staging a major war exercise involving 560 planes on the southern side of the border Thursday and Friday. A U.S. military spokesman denied that and reiterated that the helicopter was on a “routine training mission.”

Pyongyang routinely accuses the United States of staging war exercises as propaganda for domestic consumption. The latest accusation is not believed to be connected to the helicopter incident, experts on North Korea in Seoul said.

North Korea’s disclosure of the two pilots’ condition raised hopes that the incident would be swiftly resolved in the next few days. In 1977, the last time a U.S. helicopter drifted into North Korean airspace--and was shot down--Pyongyang returned the surviving crew member and the bodies of three others who were killed three days later. Officials hope for a quick resolution of the current incident in light of warmer relations amid serious U.S.-North Korean negotiations over the North’s nuclear arms program and economic aid.

In an agreement earlier this year, North Korea pledged to halt its nuclear development program. The United States, in return, pledged to help provide Pyongyang with alternative nuclear energy plants that do not readily yield plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons, and to move toward normalization of diplomatic relations.

North Korea is aware that the new Republican-controlled Congress is more skeptical about the nuclear agreement than the Democrats. The North may try to score points by quickly repatriating the surviving pilot, Hall, and the remains of Hilemon, billing it as “the most magnanimous of gestures,” said William Taylor, an expert on the military and U.S.-Korean relations with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

But Lee Dong Bok, an expert on North Korea in Seoul, said Pyongyang may still try to use the incident as leverage to press for two of its longstanding demands.

The first, Lee said, is Pyongyang’s desire to eliminate the U.N. Military Armistice Commission and negotiate directly with the United States on all military-related matters. The commission is charged with supervising the armistice that halted the 1950-1953 war between North and South Korea.

The North has boycotted high-level meetings of the commission ever since the U.S.-led U.N. Command appointed a South Korean general to head it in 1991 and Pyongyang recently persuaded the Chinese to walk away as well.

“There’s a good chance North Korea will take advantage of the seizure of the servicemen and the downing of the helicopter as an opportunity to beat the drums for a separate arrangement with the United States,” said Lee, a senior visiting lecturer with the Research Institute for National Unification.

Lee said Pyongyang may also try to create a sense of “military tension” over the incident to stir up American support to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea--or to expedite negotiations to normalize relations.

“North Korea has alternated between looking reasonable and brinkmanship, scaring the U.S. public with renewed military conflict,” Lee said. “So it would be all too logical to come up with this kind of incident to convey that this kind of incident takes place because Americans are there (in South Korea) in a hostile stance toward North Korea.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Richardson met Sunday with Foreign Minister Kim Yong Nam, Supreme People’s Assembly Chairman Yang Hyong Sop and Hwang Jang Yop of the assembly’s Foreign Affairs Commission, according to the Korean Central News Agency. There were no details of the talks.

Nathans reported from Washington and Watanabe from Seoul.