DAVAO CITY – (UPDATE 2) The fuselage of the military transport plane that crashed here Monday last week was found Thursday evening by the US Navy ship helping in retrieval operations, officials announced Friday.

The Philippine Air Force C-130 was on its way to Iloilo City to pick up members of the Presidential Security Group when it left the airport here at 8:50 p.m. on August 25. Minutes later, for still unknown reasons, the plane crashed into the Davao Gulf with seven airmen, the pilot and co-pilot and two Army soldiers on board.

Using an underwater sweeping device, the USNS John McDonnell, an oceanographic survey ship of the United Sates Navy sent last week to help Task Force C-130, located the fuselage of the C-130 at 1.3 nautical miles east of Bucana village here around 6 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.

"The USNS located the airplane 1.3 nautical miles (2.08 kilometers) east of Barangay 76-A Bucana (at) a depth of 130 meters (426 feet)," said Captain Rosauro Arnel Gonzales, head of Task Force C-130.

He said the arrival of the US ship proved to be critical in locating the exact area the plane had crashed into.

Prior to the arrival of the US vessel, search teams from the Philippine Air Force and the Coast Guard, along with volunteers, had been searching another area.

Gonzales said the exact location of the aircraft was 4.48 kilometers away from where they were previously searching.

“Images captured by USNS McDonnell have been forwarded to Philippine Authorities,” Philippine Navy spokesman Edgard Arevalo told reporters in Manila.

Arevalo also said that that the USNS McDonnell had guaranteed that these images collected by its special equipment were “100 percent” accurate.

Colonel Isagani Silva, commander of the PAF's Tactical Operations Group in Southern Mindanao, said now that the exact location of the aircraft has been determined, the investigation could already move forward.

"We now have a starting point," Silva told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.

Silva said they were just waiting for the comprehensive report from the McDonnell.

But the Philippine Navy has yet to collate the images before making an assessment, Arevalo said.

"The plan is for us to retrieve the wreckage, particularly the black box, because it will aid in the process of the investigation," Arevalo said despite claims by the PAF that the C-130 does not have a black box, which records the aircraft’s situation or condition during its flight.

"Maybe the people from the [PAF] are in a better position to inform us [whether the C-130 has a black box] but suffice to say there is a need for them to recover the wreckage in order for them to wind up the investigation that they may have to do in order to put a close into the issues surrounding why or how the C-130 crashed in that area of Davao City," Arevalo said.

But a retrieval of the crashed aircraft is pending because the Navy does not have the capacity to refloat it, Arevalo said.

"The equipment of our divers is not sufficient in order for them to refloat or to recover the debris or the wreckage of the aircraft from where it was located at 130 meters," Arevalo said.

Quoting Gonzales, Arevalo said that the Navy's divers have not yet reached the actual wreckage since they could only dive down until 300 feet.

"The next option is to acquire equipment that may be necessary... to seek assistance if there will be any equipment that could be made available from other agencies because so far with the present equipment that we have and the capability of our divers, the most they can dive is about 300 feet so there is an increment of about another 126 feet and that would really make the diving very difficult," Arevalo said.

Nevertheless, the PAF will pursue its investigation of the incident even if only parts of the plane will be recovered, said PAF spokesman Major Gerard Zamudio.

"Kung kakayanin na i-refloat mas maganda 'yan dun sa mga members ng investigation team pero kung talagang hindi kaya [It will be better for the members of the investigation team if we can refloat the aircraft, but if this cannot be done] we will be contented with the available part of the C-130 that would be pulled out from the location of the wreckage," Zamudio said.

Meanwhile, the USNS McDonnel has left the Davao Gulf after finishing its "mission" and was escorted by the Navy, Arevalo said.