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Nine-man crew of Vietnamese coast guard airplane confirmed dead

Nine-man crew of Vietnamese coast guard airplane confirmed dead

Saturday, June 25, 2016, 13:00 GMT+7

The entire nine-member search crew aboard a Vietnamese coast guard aircraft that crashed into the ocean off the northern coastline was confirmed dead on Friday, as search effort for the plane entered its eighth day.

Aircraft CASA-212 8983, captained by Colonel Le Kiem Toan, took off from the Gia Lam military airport in Hanoi on June 16 to carry out a mission to search for the then-missing pilot of a crashed Russian-made fighter jet Su30.

CASA-212 lost contact around 12:30 pm the same day while flying 44 nautical miles southwest of Bach Long Vi, triggering a fresh search mission was for the coast guard aircraft itself.

As of Friday, four bodies believed to be of the crew members and several pieces of debris, and airplane parts of both the CASA and the fighter jet Su30 had been found, Senior Lieutenant General Vo Van Tuan, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army, said at a press conference.

The CASA-212 parts include its fuselage, tail, and engine, while some personal belongings of the crews have also been retrieved, Tuan said.

The Senior Lieutenant General confirmed that all of the nine military personnel on board the CASA-212 died on mission.

Nine members of the CASA-212

Tuan also told the press conference that initial investigations had identified the causes of both of the CASA-212 and Su30 crashes.

A cockpit incident occurred with the Su30, prompting the two pilots to parachute, whereas foul weather may be responsible for the crash of CASA-212, which must have been flying near to sea surface to carry out the search mission, according to the military officer.

One of the Su-30MK2, Tran Quang Khai, died from the crash, with his body already retrieved and taken ashore for burial. The other pilot, Nguyen Huu Cuong, was rescued alive on Wednesday last week.

“We are still searching for objects related to the two planes, including the most important things, the black boxes,” Tuan told reporters.

“Information stored in the black boxes will help the investigation for the causes of crashes.”

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