Nepal says wreckage of missing US Marine helicopter found

Nepalese officials said Friday that the wreckage of a U.S. Marine helicopter that disappeared earlier this week had been found, along with at least three bodies.
Chief of army operations Maj. Gen. Binoj Basnyat told the Associated Press that wreckage of the missing chopper was spotted in the mountains northeast of Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. Basnyat said no signs of life could be seen from the air. 
Later Friday, Nepal's Defense Secretary Iswori Poudyal announced that the bodies had been found near the wreckage, but gave no details about the nationalities of the victims. The U.S. Marines said they were sending their own rescue team to assess the wreckage and determine if it was the missing helicopter, the UH-1 "Huey."
The suspected wreckage was found about 15 miles from the town of Charikot, near where the aircraft had vanished on Tuesday while delivering humanitarian aid to villages hit by two deadly earthquakes, according to the U.S. military joint task force in Okinawa, Japan. 
The discovery of the wreckage followed days of intense search involving U.S. and Nepalese aircraft and even U.S. satellites.
The U.S. relief mission was deployed soon after a magnitude-7.8 quake hit April 25, killing more than 8,200 people. It was followed by another magnitude-7.3 quake on Tuesday that killed 117 people and injured 2,800.
The helicopter had been delivering rice and tarps in Charikot, the area worst hit by Tuesday's quake. It had dropped off supplies in one location and was en route to a second site when contact was lost.
U.S. military officials said earlier this week that an Indian helicopter in the air nearby had heard radio chatter from the Huey aircraft about a possible fuel problem.