U.S. forces investigating the crash of a single-seat Air Force jet in Iraq said Tuesday that insurgents reached the site before American forces could and the pilot remains missing.

Videotape pictures obtained by Associated Press Television News appear to show the wreckage of the F-16CG jet in the farm field where it crashed Monday and the remains of a U.S. serviceman with a tangled parachute nearby.

Al-Jazeera satellite television showed similar pictures on Monday, but
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declined to include the scenes of the dead pilot, saying they were too graphic to air.

The jet crashed about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad at about 1:35 p.m. Monday while supporting extensive ground combat by coalition forces in Anbar province, the area of Iraq where many of the country's Sunni-Arab insurgent groups operate, the Air Combat Command said in a statement.

Fighter jets flying overhead when the crash occurred "confirmed that
insurgents were in the vicinity of the crash site immediately following the crash," the command said. When U.S. soldiers reached the area, "The pilot was not found at the crash site and his status cannot be confirmed at this time."

DNA samples were taken from the scene and were being tested, it said.

The F-16 was deployed to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Balad Air Base in Iraq.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military's spokesman, said Monday that he doubted the jet was shot down because F-16s fly very fast and have not
encountered weapons in Iraq that are capable of taking them down.