Flight recorders of the U.S. military plane that crashed in northern Kyrgyzstan early this month have been recovered, the country's Transport and Communication Ministry said on Monday.
The Boeing KC-135 aerial refueling tanker with three American crew-members on board crashed into a mountain gorge on May 3 some 60 kilometers (36 miles) west of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in ten minutes after taking off from the U.S. Transit Center at Manas, Bishkek's international airport.
"Flight recorders from the KC-135 were identified among crash site debris during transportation, and have been handed over to the Americans for analysis," Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted a Ministry spokesman as saying. He said DNA tests had confirmed the remains of all three crew-members.
Search operations at the crash site were called off following discovery of the black boxes and remains of the crew, the spokesman said.
The plane had 90 tons of fuel on board when it exploded at an altitude of about 6,600 meters. The debris scattered over several kilometers.
Local residents are concerned that some quantities of the fuel might have polluted the environment near the crash site. "We still do not know how much fuel on board the plane burned and how much went into the rivers. Samples have been taken for analysis, but we have not had the results yet," local Green party coordinator Chynara Bekboyeva said.
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