Posted at 11:50 a.m., Monday, April 9, 2001
Vietnam crash victims identified
Advertiser Staff and News Services
The Pentagon today released the names of seven Americans killed in a helicopter crash while on an MIA search mission in Vietnam.
Three Army soldiers were identified as Lt. Col. Rennie Melville Cory Jr. of Oklahoma City, Okla.; Lt. Col. George D. Martin III of Hopkins, S.C.; and Sgt. 1st Class Tommy James Murphy of Georgia.
The three Air Force members were identified as Maj. Charles E. Lewis of Las Cruces, N.M.; Master Sgt. Steven L. Moser of San Diego; and Tech. Sgt. Robert M. Flynn of Huntsville, Ala.
The lone Navy member on the helicopter was Chief Petty Officer Pedro Juan Gonzalez of Buckeye, Ariz.
Murphy was stationed at the Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Foirce Base. It was not immediately known whether any of the other victims were also stationed in Hawai'i.
Nine Vietnamese also died in the crash.
"The Vietnamese have been very helpful and cooperative in various aspects of this tragic accident," said Maj. Sean Gibson of the U.S. Pacific Command in Honolulu.
"There's a great deal of cooperation between our two countries. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the American servicemen and Vietnamese lost in the accident."
The team aboard the Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter was supporting an effort to recover and repatriate remains of missing American service members from the Vietnam War, a project known as Joint Task Force Full Accounting.
The task force has headquarters at Camp H.M. Smith and has detachments in Bangkok, Thailand, Vietnam's capital of Hanoi, Vientiane in Laos, and Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh.
Archaeologists, anthropologists and other forensic specialist are provided to the task force by the Central Identification Laboratory.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, officials said. Witnesses said Saturday that skies were hazy when the helicopter carrying the team crashed near Thanh Tranh village in the province of Quang Binh, about 280 miles south of Hanoi.
The remains were transported yesterday to a hospital in Hanoi for identification. Vietnamese and U.S. officials, including Pete Peterson, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, were in Hanoi to honor the arrival of the remains of those killed in the accident.
Also killed in the crash were two members of the Vietnamese Office of Seeking Missing Persons, the Vietnamese agency that assists Joint Task Force Full Accounting in its investigation and recovery efforts in Vietnam. Additionally, three Vietnamese aircrew members and four aircraft technicians were lost. Additional updates can be found at the U.S. Pacific Command's Web site at: www.pacom.mil.
