A recent large-scale military exercise in Lithuania involving US troops has turned into a rescue operation to find missing soldiers.
Lithuanian and US military personnel, as well as the fire brigades that joined the rescue operation, have been trying for three days to pull out an M88 Hercules recovery vehicle that sank into a swamp in the Pabrade area during the exercise. Local services expect to find the bodies of four American soldiers reported missing.
The four US soldiers and an M88 Hercules recovery vehicle were reported missing at General Sylvester Žukauskas’ training range in Pabrade at 04:45 on March 25. The US Embassy reported that the missing soldiers were from the 1st and 3rd Infantry Mechanised Divisions, who had been in Lithuania for several months prior to the incident.
The day after the incident, rescuers managed to establish that the army tank wrecker, which could have been carrying the servicemen who disappeared during the manoeuvres, was five metres deep in a swamp.
Despite the fact that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the soldiers were killed, the Lithuanian Defence Ministry is not in a hurry with such conclusions. They say that the deaths of the soldiers can be confirmed only after the bodies are found. The defence minister said there is no data yet on whether the four missing US soldiers could have been inside the evacuation vehicle.
“At the moment there is no confirmed information, there are no bodies of the dead soldiers, so to say that the soldiers died is simply wrong,” the Lithuanian defence minister stressed on Wednesday evening.
Local experts tried to explain why it is still impossible to check if there is anyone inside. According to them, divers involved in the operation need to overcome strong water pressure to open the hatch, which is literally pressed against the hull. In order for the hatch to be opened manually, the local media report explained, the pressure inside and outside must be the same. This is only possible in two cases: if the hull of the vehicle is completely filled with water or if the rescuers artificially equalise the pressure by making a hole.
A gas pipeline is also reported to run under the deep swamp where the M88 Hercules sank. Rescuers need to proceed with extreme care to retrieve the equipment and avoid hitting the pipe.
