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CNN Sunday Morning

Bodies Recovered From Vietnam Helicopter Crash

Aired April 08, 2001 - 09:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In Vietnam today, recovery teams have collected the bodies of 16 American and Vietnamese military personnel killed when their helicopter crashed in central Vietnam yesterday. The servicemen were scouting sites for the MIA joint task force.

CNN's Patty Davis is at the Pentagon now with the latest on the accident.

Hello, Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. The military officials here say that the seven Americans and nine Vietnamese on board that plane were on -- a helicopter rather were on a routine mission, a head of a recovery mission there in Vietnam when the Russian built MI-17, much like this one, crashed in central Vietnam. Now all on board were killed. No names though have been released yet while the relatives are notified.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now the bodies have all been recovered and they're on their way back to Hanoi where they'll be identified. The Vietnamese government with some U.S. officials will be investigating, you know, the -- how the crash occurred.

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DAVIS: Well, eyewitnesses say that the helicopter tilted from side to side and moved abnormally up and down before the crash occurred.

President Bush expressed his condolences and said that although not lost in a hostile act like those for whom they searched, they, too, have lived lives of great consequence.

Now the head of the Pentagon's MIA, the POW-MIA office, said that another recovery team, this one in Laos, was doing a recovery in Laos, has been sent to the crash site to help in the investigation at least in the recovery of personal effects and things like that to help in the identification of those remains. This is the first field accident we're told of the join task force. Full accounting that the -- that's the joint Vietnamese-U.S. group that searches for the remains of the servicemen and women killed in the Vietnam conflict -- the first field accident involving death -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: All right. Patty Davis live from the Pentagon. Thanks for that update.

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