HANOI, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The remains of two pilots of a training fighter aircraft, which crashed to a mountain in 1971, have been found in Vietnam's northern Thai Nguyen province, the provincial military command said on Sunday.
Local searching teams found the remains of the two pilots and some of their belongings such as gloves and parts of clothes on Friday on Tam Dao mountain in Thai Nguyen. The MiG-21U aircraft went missing on April 30, 1971 during a training flight over an area in the two provinces of Thai Nguyen and Vinh Phuc.
Vietnam has searched for the aircraft for years. In 2017, local people found some debris of the aircraft on a slope, and since then more searching teams have been established to search for the two pilots.
The remains, now pending for DNA analysis, are widely believed to be Vietnamese pilot and his trainer, a pilot of the former Soviet Union, a senior officer of the command said, adding that initial investigation showed that their aircraft crashed near the mountain's top, leaving a 3-meter-deep hole.
