Bodies of 2 US crew found at Kyrgyzstan crash site

[May 04, 2013]  BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) -- Search teams on Saturday found the bodies of two American crew members near where their military refueling plane crashed in the rugged mountains of Kyrgyzstan, while the third crew member was still missing, the emergencies minister of the Central Asian nation said.

The KC-135 plane crashed Friday afternoon about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the air base that the U.S. operates in Kyrgyzstan to support military operations in Afghanistan.

Officials at the U.S. Transit Center at the Manas base have released no information yet on the cause of the crash and could not immediately be reached on Saturday for any further information.

Emergencies Minister Kubatbek Boronov told The Associated Press that Kyrgyz search teams found the two fragmented bodies Saturday morning and they have not yet been identified. He said military officials from Manas were working with the Kyrgyz rescuers to search for the third crewman and the flight recorders.

Parts of the plane were scattered across a wide area near the village of Chaldovar. Some pieces, including the tail, came down on a grassy field bordered by mountains, but others landed in spots more difficult for search teams to reach.

One resident of the agricultural and sheep-grazing area, Sherikbek Turusbekov, told an AP reporter at the site on Friday that the plane exploded in flight and split into three pieces as it fell.

The plane was on a refueling mission for Afghanistan war operations at the time of the crash, a U.S. defense official in Washington said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the details of an ongoing investigation.

The U.S. base, which is adjacent to Manas International Airport outside Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, was established in late 2001 to support the international military campaign in Afghanistan. It functions as an interim point for troops going into or out of Afghanistan and as a home for the tanker planes that refuel warplanes in flight.

The Manas base has been the subject of a contentious dispute between the United States and its host nation.

In 2009, the U.S. reached an agreement with the Kyrgyz government to use it in return for $60 million a year. But the lease runs out in June 2014, and the U.S. wants to keep the base longer to aid in the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan is reluctant to extend the lease.

[Associated Press; By LEILA SARALAYEVA]

AP writers Dalton Bennett in Chaldovar, Kyrgyzstan, and Robert Burns in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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