(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-08-21 16:01

GUWAHATI, India -- The snow-preserved body of an Indian soldier was given to his family on Tuesday, nearly 40 years after he died in a plane crash in the Himalayas, an official said.

Soldiers discovered the frozen bodies of Mahendranath Phukan and two other victims half-buried in snow on a glacier at an altitude of 17,500 feet (5,300 metres) on a search earlier this month.

"The body is intact and not decomposed," said an army commander, who asked not to be named in keeping with army protocol.

The corpses were discovered close to where an army plane crashed in 1968 in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh state, but the army has not yet disclosed the identity of the other two victims.

Only one other body has even been found following the crash, in which all 102 passengers are believed to have been killed.

Phukan's body, wrapped in the Indian flag, was given to his family on Tuesday morning in Deodhai Gaon Deuri Chuk village in Assam, a state in north-eastern India, the commander said.