Vietnamese Airbus CASA 212 Goes Down With Nine Servicemen

The debris of the Vietnamese Airbus CASA 212 coast guard plane along with nine people was found by the military rescue forces Friday.

The turboprop plane was in a search operation for an Air Force pilot missing from another crashed aircraft a few days earlier. The plane went off the radar at around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, about 44 nautical mile southwest of Bach Long Vi Island in the Gulf of Tonkin, which separates the country from China.

Thanh Nien reported citing sources as saying that the debris was found in the waters 12-15 nautical miles southwest of Bach Long Vi Island. The crashed plane is believed to be at a depth of some 58 meters.

But the source refused to comment on the issue of the nine officers onboard the plane, which was piloted by Col. Le Kiem Toan, Commander of Brigade KQ918 of the air force.

Vietnam bought three CASA 212 planes from Airbus Military in Spain between 2012 and 2013.

Major General Nguyen Quang Dam, a Coast Guard commander, was quoted by news website VnExpress as saying preliminary investigation found the plane had crashed while descending due to poor weather.

The latest incidents follows a series of mishaps that hit the military in the past two years.

Two Soviet-era Su-22 fighter aircraft of the Vietnamese air force crashed into the East Sea during a training mission in April 2015. Both pilots died in the crash.

Two earlier crashes, which involved a Russian Mi-171 and US-built UH-1, killed 24 people.