4 Bodies Recovered at U.S. Plane Crash Site

Searchers recovered the bodies of four of the seven people aboard a U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that slammed into an Andean mountainside last week while on a counter-narcotics mission in Colombia. Efforts to recover the other three bodies were continuing. The identities of those found weren’t immediately clear. Army Capt. Jack Miller, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, said the bodies were expected to be flown to the capital, Bogota, where they would be identified. Colombian air force commander Gen. Fabio Velasco said the four bodies were those of Americans. There were five U.S. soldiers and two Colombian air force officers aboard the De Havilland RC-7 reconnaissance plane, which hit a 9,000-foot peak in the southern state of Putumayo while it circled above a major drug-producing area. The U.S. soldiers were based at Ft. Bliss, Texas.