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Iraqi official believes pilot died in cockpit©Associated Press © St. Petersburg Times, published January 16, 2001 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A 1995 search of a U.S. warplane downed in Iraq's western desert during the Gulf War showed the pilot was killed without ejecting from the cockpit, though his remains were never found, a senior Iraqi official said Monday. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said Iraq cooperated fully with a U.S. team that visited the crash site for several days in December 1995, adding that there was no reason to believe Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael S. Speicher survived the crash of his F-18 Hornet on the first night of the war, Jan. 17, 1991. However, U.S. intelligence officials in Washington said there were unconfirmed reports in recent years that Speicher survived and was detained by the Iraqis. The U.S. government last week demanded an accounting of the case. "All the indications were that he was killed while he was still in the cockpit," Aziz said when asked about the matter by a group of visiting American activists opposed to the international sanctions against Iraq. "But there were no remnants of his body after several years in a remote desert environment." Aziz said the investigators were able to determine that the pilot had not ejected. Parts of his uniform were found at the site, the Iraqis and the Americans said. Aziz did not indicate how the Iraqis would respond to the U.S. government's demands, but said the country had provided the Americans with full assistance during the inquiry. Iraq was not aware of the crash site until the Americans notified Iraq, Aziz added. Before the U.S. investigators arrived, digging at the site had been carried out by desert-dwelling Bedouins in the area, Iraq said, adding that the Bedouins took some parts of the plane. "We have told the Iraqis that their statements to this point have either turned out to be inaccurate, misleading or incomplete," National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said Sunday in Washington. Speicher of Jacksonville flew his F-18 Hornet off the carrier USS Saratoga on the opening night of the war in January 1991 and went down west of Baghdad. He apparently was attacked by an Iraqi MiG-25 fighter. Another American pilot who saw the jet explode in the air reported that it was hit by an air-to-air missile and that he did not see Speicher eject. Speicher is the only American lost in Iraqi territory during the war who has not been accounted for.
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