Former foes Hanoi and Washington were united in grief Sunday as they pledged to work together to establish the cause of a helicopter crash which killed seven US servicemen and nine Vietnamese nationals.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was swift to express sadness at the loss of Vietnamese and American personnel while Vietnam's foreign minister sent his condolences to the families of the US victims.
The aircraft burst into flames and blew up in the north-central province of Quang Binh Saturday afternoon while on a mission to prepare for the recovery of Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War, Vietnamese officials said.
It was the first tragedy in America's 16-year-old joint program with Vietnam to account for US military still listed as missing from the war.
"The helicopter burst into flames and blew up at 4:15 pm (0915 GMT) Saturday," a provincial military command spokesman said, citing an official report.
The accident happened in the commune of Thanh Trach in Bo Trach district, just 700 meters (yards) from Vietnam's main coastal highway.
Emergency teams were on the scene within just 45 minutes.
A district commander said the search operation had proved relatively easy because of perfect weather conditions and the relative lack of tree cover at the accident site on Hon Bung hill, 14 kilometers from the provincial capital of Dong Hoi.
The bodies were all located overnight but were so badly charred that identification was proving difficult.
The seven Vietnamese nationals who died in the crash were mainly civilians, officials said.
They comprised three flight crew from a small state-owned regional airline, four aircraft technicians, an official from the foreign ministry's North American affairs department and a senior officer from the defense ministry.
The remains of all the dead were expected to arrive in the capital around 8:00 pm (1300 GMT) after being transferred by road from the crash scene around 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the south. The US dead were not expected to be repatriated for at least another 24 hours.
Vietnamese officials stressed they were working closely with their US counterparts on the accident despite a sharp downturn in relations in recent months over what Hanoi sees as Washington's meddling in a wave of ethnic unrest in the central highlands.
Vietnam would cooperate with the United States in determining the cause of the accident, military commanders said, despite a renewed diatribe against Washington in the army daily Quan Doi Nhan Dan Sunday for its "well attested interference in our internal affairs."
"They have been very cooperative and very communicative with us," an embassy spokesman said.
The team was en route from the northern city of Vinh to Phu Bai on the central coast.
Embassy officials would not elaborate on the details of their mission but in Washington President George W. Bush paid tribute to the importance of their work.
"Although not lost in a hostile act, like those for whom they search, they too have lived lives of great consequence, answering a calling of service to their fellow citizens.
"Today's loss is a terrible one for our nation."
Rumsfeld was careful to express sadness at the "tragic loss of life of both US and Vietnamese service personnel" and paid tribute to the "full support" given by Hanoi to the continuing search for US MIAs.
Washington's failure to swiftly express regret for the loss of a Chinese fighter pilot in last weekend's collision with a US spy plane sparked outrage in Beijing.
Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien also sent his condolences to the families of the seven US victims.
"This is an extremely tragic accident and a great loss for both Vietnam and the United States," ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in the first official reaction to the accident.
The Russian-made MI-17 helicopter had been leased to the defense ministry by a small regional subsidiary of state-run Vietnam Airlines.
Officials at the company declined to give any information about the age of the aircraft or the number of miles (kilometers) it had flown.
Since 1985, Washington has conducted some 65 joint missions with Vietnam, which have allowed the repatriation of the remains of more than 600 US servicemen.
A total of 2,000 more are still posted as missing in southeast Asia, 1,500 of them in Vietnam -- HANOI (AFP)
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