Philippine fighter jet wreckage, bodies of crew found

MANILA

Philippine rescuers on Wednesday found the wreckage of a fighter jet and the bodies of two crewmen sent to combat communist rebels in a mountainous region of the country's south.

The FA-50 fighter jet had gone missing a day earlier while on a mission to provide air support for troops fighting guerrillas in northern Mindanao.

Lieutenant General Luis Rex Bergante, commander of Eastern Mindanao Command, told AFP the two crewmen had been found inside the wreckage.

"The bodies were found inside the aircraft. There was an attempt to open a parachute and eject," he said.

"The aircraft was a total wreck. The aircraft smashed through the trees in the mountain."

Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Garello of the 4th Infantry Division told AFP the wreckage of the missing jet was found on Mount Kalatungan.

Located in Mindanao's Bukidnon province, the 2,880-meter Kalatungan is the fifth-tallest mountain in the Philippines.

Bergante said bringing the servicemen's remains down the mountainside was now the top priority.

In a statement, the air force said it had temporarily "grounded its FA-50 fleet" and would "ensure a thorough investigation into the accident," the cause of which remains unknown.

The crashed jet was one of a dozen FA-50s the Philippines purchased from South Korea in the past decade.

The jets flew out of Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base, which shares a runway with the airport in Cebu, the Philippines' second-largest city.

Air force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo told reporters on March 4 it was the "first major incident" involving its squadron of FA-50s, which have been used in exercises over the disputed South China Sea.

The FA-50s have been flown in joint air patrols with treaty ally the United States over contested areas of the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines have been involved in increasingly tense confrontations.