Bodies of 2 pilots recovered in Philippine crash

Philippine officials say divers have recovered the bodies of two pilots from a plane that crashed in the sea over the weekend and killed the country's popular interior secretary, ending a massive search.

Updated on: Aug 23, 2012, 10:54:45 IST

AP | By HT Correspondent, Manila

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Philippine officials say divers have recovered the bodies of two pilots from a plane that crashed in the sea over the weekend and killed the country's popular interior secretary, ending a massive search.

Defense secretary Voltaire Gazmin says the Filipino pilot, Capt. Jessup Bahinting, was retrieved from the wreckage of the four-seat Piper Seneca plane on the sea floor off central Masbate province on Wednesday.

His Nepalese co-pilot, Kshitiz Chand, was found floating on Thursday.

Interior secretary Jesse Robredo's body was retrieved on Tuesday in a US Navy-backed search supervised by President Benigno Aquino III. Robredo's police aide managed to swim out of the doomed plane and survived.

With a stalled engine, the plane crashed at sea while attempting to land on Saturday at the Masbate airport. The wreckage was brought ashore on Thursday.

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