Crews working overnight at a military training area in eastern Lithuania removed some silt in the area where a missing vehicle carrying US troops was lost, but water is continuing to flood the site, and so a larger dredger from Lithuania’s Inland Waterways Directorate is going to be brought in, Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovile Sakaliene declared on Friday morning.
“A different type of silt suction machine was used last night,” the minister explained in an interview with LRT Radio. “The large dredger is expected to arrive today. Some silt was removed overnight, but not enough. Water keeps flowing into the site from the nearby lake.”
Sakaliene said that the layer of silt at the site is up to five metres deep, and although two or three metres were cleared overnight, the water is so murky that the vehicle still cannot be seen. A longer pipe would be brought in on Friday to pump out the accumulating water from the pit.
“The 300-metre pipe they have will allow them to pump the silt-water mixture further away from the incident site. If that is different than what we tried before, then we should finally break through the last silt barrier between us and the vehicle sometime toward this evening,” the minister told the public broadcaster.
Unstable ground and rising water mean that the submerged American recovery vehicle must be fully pulled out of the mire before it can be examined safely, Sakaliene added:
“Trying to enter it without pulling it out would pose a high risk for rescuers. At the moment, the plan is to attack cables and pulleys and then haul it ashore with military equipment.”
The four American soldiers aboard an M88 Hercules tracked recovery vehicle went missing during a military experience at the Pabrade training area in he Svencionys District on Tuesday.
The likely site was identified the next day, and it was determined that the vehicle had sunk to a depth of around five metres. It remained unclear whether the missing soldiers will inside the vehicle, and all scenarios about that are still being considered.
Lithuanian and US military police are working under the supervision of Lithuanian prosecutors to conduct a pre-trial investigation into what happened to the soldiers.
Source: BNS
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