An Army search team has returned to Hawaii with what are believed to be remains of four U.S. service members killed in a World War II-era plane crash about 15,500 feet up the Himalayan Mountains, officials said. Army team brings 4 sets of
likely WWII remains
Associated Press
The team from the Army's Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, also gathered information from a second WWII-era crash site higher up the mountains to help lab researchers connect the site to three other missing American service members, the Army said yesterday.
The 14-member team left for Tibet in August on a mission searching for remains of four people who were aboard a C-46 transport plane that was reported missing in flight from Kunming, China, to its home base at Sookerating, India, in March 1944. It was believed to have run out of fuel before crashing into a ravine about halfway up the mountain.
Near the end of that mission, a four-member team broke off from the main team to search the second site at about 16,200 feet. The second crash also involved a C-46 aircraft, although it is unknown exactly how many people were aboard that flight.
Information about the crash sites was reported to the U.S. government by the Chinese government in 2000. The last recovery mission in Tibet was in 1994.
The remains recovered from the initial crash site were transported to the lab at Hickam Air Force Base, where an effort will be made to identify them, the Army said in a news release.
