US pilot's remains found after 18 years

WASHINGTON: The remains of the first American lost in the Gulf War have been found in Iraq, the military said yesterday, a sorrowful resolution of a nearly two-decade-old question about the fate of Navy Captain Michael "Scott" Speicher.

The Pentagon said the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology on Saturday positively identified the pilot's remains, buried in the desert and located after officials received new information from an Iraqi citizen about a crash.

Speicher's disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his fighter was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War.