Eighteen of 19 bodies recovered from Marine crash wreckage

MARANA, Ariz. - Military investigators removed 18 bodies on Tuesday from the charred wreckage of a tiltrotor aircraft that crashed during a nighttime exercise, killing all 19 Marines aboard.

A recovery team will remove the final body Wednesday, a Marine Corps spokesman said.

The removal team, including workers in protective white jumpsuits and wearing masks, spent the day at the grim task as investigators worked to collect data and evaluate the crash site about 30 miles northwest of Tucson.

The recovery team worked behind a series of tarpaulins set up beside the crash site to help screen out strong winds and to give workers some privacy, spokesman Lt. Mark Carter said.

Gunnery Sgt. Nathan Portman, a spokesman at the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma where Saturday's training exercise began, said it still was too early to say how long it would take to make a preliminary finding on the cause of the accident.

''Some of these investigations can be done in a week. Some of these investigations can take months,'' he said.

Maj. David C. Andersen, a Pentagon spokesman speaking from the crash site, said investigators are looking at all possibilities that could have caused or contributed to the crash and have not focused on any one potential factor.

Andersen said the victims' remains would be taken to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson and then to Dover Air Force Base, the primary base for identifying military casualties.

Identification likely will involve a review of DNA, fingerprints and other records.

The Osprey, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane, crashed during an evacuation training exercise at the Marana Northwest Regional Airport.

Another Osprey in the exercise was rocked and landed hard when the ill-fated aircraft exploded, Gen. James Jones, the Marine Corps commandant, said in Washington. Winchester said on-board computers showed no damage to the aircraft.

Jones said the crew chief of the surviving Osprey witnessed the crash and the description of what he saw likely will play an important role in the accident investigation.

The training exercise involved four Ospreys in all, including two others that were orbiting several miles away and were to have flown in to pick up Marines dressed in civilian clothes, simulating evacuees, Winchester said.

Ospreys, designed for cargo and personnel transport, are in the final stages of evaluation by the military. The Marines has planned to buy 360 of the $44 million aircraft by 2014.

The crash Saturday night was the deadliest air disaster for the Marines since 22 died in a helicopter crash in South Korea in 1989. The last crash of an Osprey was in 1992, when a prototype version crashed into the Potomac River near Quantico, Va., and killed seven people.

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