At the request of the American side, Kyrgyz rescue officers have suspended the search for the KC-135 aircraft that crashed on May 3 after taking off from an air base located at the international airport in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Duty Officer of the country's Ministry of Emergency Situations told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
KC-135 crashed in a mountainous gorge of the Panfilov district of the Chui region of Kyrgyzstan in a hundred kilometers from Bishkek ten minutes after taking off from an air base at the height of 6,600 meters. The plane was heading for the assignment in Afghanistan on refueling in the air. The search for the wreckage has been going on for over a week. Earlier, Kyrgyz rescue officers have conducted search operations around the crash site as well as a complete inspection of large parts of the fuselage. Later on, the search area was expanded from four to eight kilometers. The bodies of two of the three members of the crew were found. The search is still ongoing for the aircraft "black boxes".
"Our rescuers will not work on the site of an emergency today and tomorrow. On Monday, they will return to the search operations, if the U.S. side asks so," he said.
Earlier, the military servicemen of the U.S. military air base, set up at Manas in December 2001 and later renamed as the Transit Center, held a memorial service for their fallen comrades: 27-year-old pilots Mark Voss and Victoria Pickney and technician Sergeant Herman Mackey.
The Transit Center is a major transport and logistics hub for the transportation of cargo and transfer of contingents of the antiterrorist coalition to Afghanistan. According to official data, the transit center deployed about 1,500 U.S. military and civilian personnel involved in the "Operation Enduring Freedom" in Afghanistan. Aircraft fuel tankers of the base carry out about 30 percent of all air refueling of the coalition forces.