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Clinton to visit When President Clinton visits Hanoi later this month, he will visit a site where Hawaii-based anthropologists and military recovery experts are looking for the remains of a U.S. pilot shot down during the Vietnam War.
Vietnam site of
pilot crash
By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-BulletinClinton's visit will be the first by a U.S. president since the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975.
He will be in Hanoi for three days beginning Nov. 16, spending Nov. 20 in Ho Chi Min City before leaving for Washington.
Clinton also may take part in a ceremony marking the repatriation of American servicemen's remains.
Clinton will make his seventh visit to Hawaii on his way to Asia, laying over in the islands Nov. 11-13. A White House spokeswoman said today that she didn't know whether the proposed congressional recess would affect Clinton's Hawaii plans. Details of the visit will be released next week.
Navy Petty Officer Jeffrey McDowell, a spokesman for Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, said the Vietnam crash site is one of 11 being considered by the White House. It has been surveyed by members of JT-FA's investigative teams on three earlier occasions.
Based at Camp Smith, the task force was established in 1992. JT-FA's mission is to account for missing Americans from the Vietnam War. Since 1973, the remains of 591 U.S. servicemen have been identified and returned to their families. There are still 1,992 Americans missing from the Vietnam War, of which 1,498 are believed to be in Vietnam.
The site being examined is where military investigators are hoping to recover the remains of an Air Force captain who was piloting one of four F-105 Delta jet fighters in 1967 when he crashed about 30 miles outside of Hanoi.
McDowell said North Vietnamese prisoners of war reported a jet being hit by a surface-to-air missile. The pilot was thought to have ejected and landed near a lake.
"The pilot was reported to have lost both of his legs," McDowell said, "and died shortly."
Investigation of the suspected crash site first occurred in October 1993, McDowell added. Task force teams visited the same site in October 1995 and February 1998.
"Witnesses were interviewed and generic aircraft items were recovered," he said However, the area also is the site of 25 other aircraft crashes.
A team of 93 task force specialists is at the Hanoi crash site. They are part of six teams that left the islands last week for another 30-day Vietnam recovery mission.
Thirty-two cases involving aircraft and ground losses will be investigated at six primary excavation sites.
Clinton's most recent stop in the islands -- Sept. 15, 1999 -- was limited to a 90-minute refueling stop at Hickam because of Hurricane Floyd.
Clinton's first Hawaii visit was in 1993 and included a speech on Waikiki Beach. In 1995, Clinton spent several days on Oahu, attending ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific.
His other brief visits were in 1994, 1996 and 1998.
Clinton will leave here Nov. 13 to attend the 2000 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Brunei. He may stopover in North Korea after Nov. 20, pending the outcome of talks that began today in Kuala Lumpur over North Korea's missile program. North Korea has expressed a willingness to give up its missile program in exchange for help in launching communications satellites.
