U.S. to aid C-130 search

A US Navy vessel was steaming to the southern Philippines Friday to help locate the wreckage of a Filipino military transport plane that crashed at sea, the Asian country's air force chief said.

The oceanographic survey ship USNS John McDonnell is set to arrive in the Davao Gulf on Saturday, five days after the C-130 went down killing all nine people on board, said Lt. Gen. Pedrito Cadungog.

"The survey ship should arrive in the area tomorrow afternoon," Cadungog said. "It would help us locate the position of the plane."

He said the government needed to recover major parts of the wreckage, which lies in deep water, to determine the cause of the crash.

"We are no longer looking for survivors," he added.

The 41 year-old US-made aircraft lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after taking off from Davao airport on restive Mindanao island late Monday.

The Philippine military has ruled out its own earlier suggestion that it could have been shot down by Muslim insurgents.

Meanwhile, a civilian training plane crashed at sea off the island of Lubang south of Manila on Thursday, killing its pilot, Cadungog said.

The cause of this second accident, involving a Piper PA-38 aircraft, is under investigation by civil aviation authorities, he added.