March 31, 2002, The Philippine Star, Philippines: Bodies of five US soldiers killed in helicopter crash,

March 31, 2002, The Philippine Star, Philippines: Bodies of five US soldiers killed in helicopter crash,

Zamboanga City: A salvage crew has recovered from 1,200-foot-deep waters the bodies of five of the 10 American soldiers whose MH-47E "Chinook" helicopter crashed off Negros Oriental in February, a US military spokesman said yesterday.

US army Maj Cynthia Teramae, spokeswoman for the US Pacific Command Task Force 510, confirmed that the bodies of the five crewmen were recovered during ongoing salvage and recovery operations but declined to identify them.

She said the Americans' remains will be processed by the US military at the Gen Benito Ebuen Air Base in Mactan, Cebu before they are flown to the Charles C. Carson Centre for Mortuary Affairs at Dover air force base in Delaware.

The recovery operations are being conducted by the US Naval Sea Systems Command which contracted a Dutch-owned offshore support vessel, the Jan Steen, and fitted it with a towed array sonar, used by US navy nuclear submarines.

The recovery team also used deep-sea drones, or unmanned vehicles with cameras and manipulator arms and claws, similar to the ones used to locate the Titanic in the northern Atlantic Ocean in the early 1990s.

Teramae said the recovery team will try to locate the two other missing Americans before lifting the Chinook, which crashed due to still unknown causes off Zamboanguita town near Apo Island last 22 February.

"The focus of the recovery effort is to determine the cause of the mishap," Teramae said. "We have recovered portions of the main wreckage."

The recovery brought to eight the total recovered bodies from the crash. Three bodies were recovered hours after the crash.