16 confirmed dead in helicopter crash
Officials have begun to recover the bodies of nine Vietnamese and seven Americans who died in a helicopter crash while searching for Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War.
The Russian-made MI-17 helicopter crashed into a hillside in central Vietnam.
US Embassy spokesman David Monk said the group was making a preliminary visit to a possible MIA recovery site to determine whether it was worth excavating.
Vietnamese police confirmed earlier US military reports that the helicopter was carrying 16 people. Initially, they had reported that 20 people were on board.
A spokesman for the US military's Pacific Command in Honolulu, Lieutenant Sean Kelly, said the service members killed were all on a mission for Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, a group based in Camp HM Smith, Hawaii, that investigates Americans missing from the Vietnam War.
The task force has searched for remains from the Indochina War in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China since 1992, and in recent years has expanded operations to include World War II and Korean War MIA recovery cases.
Lt Kelly said no other information could be released until next of kin have been notified.
Vietnamese police said local authorities found one Vietnamese man still alive when they reached the crash site on Saturday. The man told them the helicopter was carrying an MIA search team and later died.
President George W Bush has expressed his condolences and urged Americans to "remember their sacrifice".
