Two Bodies At Crash Site Found; Third Missing In Kyrgyzstan Crash

Two bodies were found at the crash site of a plane in Kyrgyzstan, but a third crew member was still missing. Search teams on Saturday found the two bodies of American crew members in the rugged mountains of Kyrgyzstan near the location of the crash of their military refueling plane, but the third crew member was still missing.

Officials from Kazakhstan informed the Associated Press about the discovery of the first two bodies. Emergencies Minister Kubatbek Boronov said that search teams made of local Kyrgyz people found the two bodies on Saturday morning, but that they have yet to be identified. The rescuers and military personnel are currently looking for flight recorders and for the third crew member's body. Dozens of U.S. military personnel scoured the area on Saturday and set up a security cordon around the crash site.

The KC- 135 plane crashed Friday afternoon about 100 miles west of the Manas air base that the U.S. operates in Kyrgyzstan in order to lend support to military operations in Afghanistan. Officials at the U.S. Transit Center at the base base have not yet released information on the cause of the crash or other comments.

Emil Bokochev, a local citizen and member of the village council, told an AP reporter that he  "heard a very loud explosion. Literally six or seven seconds afterward there was another explosion and the plane broke apart into four or five pieces and at that moment we thought it was going to fall on the village Chaldovar."

An anonymous U.S. defense official in Washington told reporters that the plane in question was on a refueling mission for Afghanistan war operations when it crashed.

Parts of the plane were scattered across a wide area near the village of Chaldovar. The rugged terrain meant that some pieces came down in a grassy valley, but that others are likely in steep, mountainous spots that are more challenging for search teams to discover or get to.

Searches remain underway for the third body after the first two bodies were found at the crash site.