Defense Department archeologists set out to investigate the wreckage and remains of a military aircraft and its crew that were discovered on a glacier in Alaska earlier this month, announced the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. An Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crew first spotted and photographed the apparent crash site on a June 10 training sortie, according to JPAC’s June 20 release. Just nine days later, a specialized JPAC investigation team arrived from JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, to survey the crash site on Knik Glacier, roughly 45 miles east of Anchorage, for a potential recovery operation. The aircraft’s identity is a mystery, but it is “on our front burner,” said JPAC spokeswoman Michelle Thomas, reported the Anchorage Daily News (via Stars and Stripes) June 17. “We have gotten some phone calls from family members, just wondering if it’s a case linked to that area,” but the command doesn’t want to raise false hope, she added.
South Korea conducted the final live-fire drill with its F-4 Phantom II and AGM-142 missiles before retiring the two defense assets in June, amid the largest U.S.-Korea Aerial Exercise in full swing.