DATE: Friday, September 19, 1997            TAG: 9709190973

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   80 lines

BONES FOUND IN SUNKEN VAN MAY BE MISSING SAILOR THE DISCOVERY AT NORSHIPCO MAY SOLVE THE 1995 CASE.

A nationwide search for a sailor who vanished from her ship without a trace almost 2 1/2 years ago may have ended where it began: at Norshipco, where a van containing skeletal remains was pulled from murky waters on Thursday.

Fatimah Jean Khan, 20, was last seen on April 24, 1995, when she was told to check on some Navy vehicles parked at the shipyard. Shortly after she was reported missing, naval investigators found that one of the vehicles, a white, 13-passenger 1990 Dodge van, also had disappeared.

The heavily rusted, decaying van recovered ``is a white van,'' like the missing vehicle, said Larry Hill, a police spokesman. ``But it has no license plates,'' and he said it was unclear if it is the missing Dodge.

Investigators were looking for identifying numbers, but it was a time-consuming effort given the vehicle's condition.

In the meantime, investigators were taking great care not to jump the gun based on presumptions.

``Some skeletal remains have been recovered,'' Hill confirmed late Thursday. But the state medical examiner's office in Norfolk will have the job of determining if they are Khan's, he said.

Khan was a seaman apprentice assigned to the Norfolk-based oiler Merrimack when she disappeared while the ship was at pier 3 at Norshipco's Berkley shipyard for routine repairs.

She had been standing duty that evening when she was sent to make certain government vehicles assigned to the ship and parked about 200 feet from it were locked, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said at the time. She never returned.

The Baltimore native with Pakistani roots was considered a good worker whose disappearance was out of character.

She was not assigned to any security-sensitive duties. Her belongings, including cash, checkbook and two pocketbooks, were found in her locker aboard the ship.

After a 13-passenger van also was found to be missing - and no one at the yard's security gates recalled seeing it or Khan leave - a search was launched.

Divers scoured the Elizabeth River near the ship, but found nothing. A more coordinated search, using aircraft and ground units, also turned up no sign of Khan or the vehicle.

NCIS agents talked with Khan's family, friends and co-workers and asked other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to list her as a missing person.

The investigation finally stalled, however, for lack of any evidence.

Until Thursday.

No one anticipated the grim discovery that was to come when civilian divers were first ordered into the river after the discovery of oil percolating to the surface between pier 3 and the Military Sealift Command ship Cape Mendocino.

The divers found a van, upside down, in the muck about 10:30 a.m. That set in motion a laborious effort to recover it and its contents.

``It was a very hard process to recover this van from the water intact, without also losing any possible evidence that was inside,'' Hill said.

Norfolk Naval Shipyard sent its dive team to assist crews from Crofton Diving Corp. of Portsmouth. Norshipco gave police use of shipyard cranes, forklifts, lights and other gear as well as numerous personnel.

The two main concerns were that the vehicle might fall apart as it was lifted from the river and that materials in it might spill out, Hill said.

Ropes and cables were used to secure the van and a large tarp was tied around it to serve as a catch-all for anything that might fall out.

The tedious recovery was hampered for a time because of television news helicopters hovering over the scene.

``There are four of five divers in the water and they can't communicate,'' Hill said. ``The helicopter noise is drowning out the communications and they can't hear each other as they try to lift this thing out of the water safely.''

Television stations resorted to the choppers to get images of the scene because of a long-standing Navy policy denying news media access to unscheduled events within shipyards that work on nuclear-powered warships.

The choppers retreated skyward after Hill spoke with the various newsrooms, lessening the noise problem.

Finally, well after dark, the van was lifted out.

The tarp that had been set around it was carefully drained of water as forensics technicians and investigators watched for any important evidence.

They were continuing to sift through the muck-covered debris late Thursday.

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