Pubdate: Thu, 29 July 1999
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Author: Serge F. Kovaleski, Washington Post Foreign Service

SEARCHERS RECOVER 4 BODIES IN COLOMBIA

Bad Weather, Terrain At Plane Crash Site

BOGOTA, Colombia, July 28--Search teams braving bad weather and daunting
terrain reached the wreckage of a crashed U.S. military reconnaissance
plane and recovered four crew members' bodies, authorities said today.

Working in visibility of less than five feet due to dense clouds and fog,
U.S. and Colombian investigators located the tail number of the De
Havilland RC-7 aircraft, confirming it was the missing U.S. plane. By late
today, they had recovered the bodies of four of the seven crew
members--five Americans and two Colombians--from shattered debris lying in
thick jungle on a steep slope in an area of southern Colombia controlled by
Marxist rebels.

The four bodies were flown to a Colombian military base while a search
continued for the three others, who are presumed dead, as well as for clues
to what caused the aircraft to slam into a remote ridge early Friday during
an anti-narcotics mission.

"Our number one priority is still to locate the three remaining crew
members," said Air Force Capt. Jack Miller, a spokesman for the Southern
Command, which is based in Miami and responsible for U.S. military
operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The crash of the four-engine, propeller-driven plane marked the first time
that American troops have been killed in Colombia's U.S.-supported war
against drug smuggling and Marxist-led guerrillas who often protect the
traffickers.

During a two-day visit to Colombia this week that was planned before the
RC-7 was reported missing, President Clinton's top counter-narcotics
official, Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired general, said the aircraft
apparently crashed into an uncharted mountain while flying in inclement
weather. Officials said the crew of the plane--which was carrying infrared
sensors and eavesdropping equipment--gave no indication that they were
being fired on by guerrillas before losing contact with controllers.

Southern Command officials said more than two dozen Colombian and U.S.
military personnel were lowered from a helicopter late Tuesday onto a peak
more than 900 feet above the debris field. It took the team about three
hours to descend the ridge. But a Colombian Defense Ministry source said
that Colombian troops walking from nearby towns arrived at the crash scene
first, and that the helicopters delivered additional personnel only this
morning.

The crash area is controlled by rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia. The Colombian source said some insurgents were spotted in areas
around the wreckage but there were no reports of clashes. The rebels have a
strong presence throughout the Putumayo and Caqueta regions, where
two-thirds of Colombia's coca is grown.

This South American country of 37 million people supplies an estimated 80
percent of the world's cocaine and more than two-thirds of the heroin
consumed in the United States. 
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