SEOUL, South Korea -- A U.S. helicopter carrying 29 American and South Korean marines on military manuevers crashed off Korea's southeastern coast early Saturday and all were presumed killed, a U.S. Marine spokesman said.
The 29 included 18 Americans and 11 South Koreans.
'All of them are believed perished,' the Marine spokesman said.
U.S. officials originally had said nine servicemen had died in the accident.
The crash of the CH-53D chopper took place at 4 a.m. local time (2 p.m. EST Friday) about 24 miles north of Pohang, a South Korean marine corps base 170 miles southeast of Seoul.
The craft was one of six helicopters which took off Pohang Airfield for a 'night insertion' exercise as part of Team Spirit '84, an exercise involving U.S. and South Korean forces.
'Weather was about minimum standard when they took off,' the official said.
'However, as flight continued the weather grew worse. The mission was terminated and the aircraft were returning to Pohang when the helicopter crashed.'
After the crash, a U.S. Marine Corps observation aircraft sighted a fire on a rugged mountain side and a search and rescue operation started immediately, according to the Marine spokesman.
He said all the Americans involved were from 3 Marine Amphibious Force based on Okinawa.
Idenficiations were withheld pending notification of relatives.
Team Spirit '84, an annual combined joint military exercise involving U.S. and South Korean troops, began last month and was scheduled to end at the end of this month. The exercises were designed to increase the combat readiness of ground, naval, amphibious, air and special operations forces of the two countries.
The exercises involved 207,000 South Koreans and 60,050 Americans, including 36,800 American soldiers brought in from the continental United States and foreign military bases.
The crash was the first air accident in the exercise and followed by two days a naval incident involving warships of the United States and the Soviet Union.
On Wednesday, the 80,000-ton U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and a nuclear-powered Soviet submarine collided in the Japan Sea off Korea's southeastern coast while taking part in an amphibious landing operation as part of the Team Spirit exercise.
The Soviet submarine, which had been shadowing the Kitty Hawk, surfaced following the mishap. No extensive damage was reported on either vessel.
