Isle team hunts for
CIA plane in China

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By Ted Anthony
Associated Press

BEIJING >> Guided by the memories of an aging witness, an American search team is scouring a patch of northeastern China for a CIA plane that went down 50 years ago -- and the remains of the pilots believed lost in the crash.

In a statement yesterday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the team had reached a site near the town of Antu in the northeastern province of Jilin and was clearing land and beginning sweeps with metal detectors to locate the wreckage of the unmarked C-47 aircraft.

The two pilots -- Robert C. Snoddy of Eugene, Ore., and Norman A. Schwartz of Louisville, Ky. -- were about to pick up an anti-communist Chinese spy in the foothills of the region formerly known as Manchuria when their plane was shot down on Nov. 29, 1952.

China has told the Pentagon only that their charred bodies were buried at the snow-covered crash site. Two CIA officers traveling aboard the plane were captured and imprisoned by China for two decades.

"The U.S. government is hopeful that this search will yield results that bring comfort and closure to the families of these two brave Americans," the U.S. Embassy said yesterday.

At the time, China and the United States were fighting on opposing sides in the Korean War and the CIA was trying to undermine the fledgling communist regime on its home territory.

The eight-member search team, from the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, reported Tuesday evening that they had reached a site near a stream that had been pointed out to them late last week by a resident in his late 70s who, it appeared, had seen the crash.

Heavy rainfall and an impassable bridge had prevented the team from crossing the swollen stream, the embassy said, but searchers eventually made it across using a rope bridge and pulley system.

The witness could not manage the hike, so police from the area led the team to the site, the embassy said. It said the team cleared a 50-square-yard site and had begun metal detector sweeps and visual searches for remains of the airplane, a military version of the twin-engine DC-3 aircraft used by airlines of the era.

Investigation of the site will continue until the weekend, the embassy said.

China's granting of permission for the U.S. Defense Department to search the site marks the first time Beijing has cooperated on a search for the remains of Americans who died in China during the Cold War.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said earlier this month that China decided to permit the search to promote "friendship between the two peoples and in a humanitarian spirit."