New Delhi, March 19: Arizona businessman Clayton Kuhles, 53, had trekked for over a day through the forests of Arunachal Pradesh when he stumbled upon the wreckage of an American war plane lying along a steep ravine.

With darkness threatening to envelop the hills — at an altitude of over 9,000 feet — Kuhles and his guide rummaged through the debris furiously, desperate to find some identification for the plane. They did — it was a B-24J bomber, with its number, 42-73308, inscribed next to a wing.

A year later, a ray of hope for closure may have emerged for the families of dozens of American World War II soldiers, who have been termed missing ever since their planes crashed over India six decades ago.

India and the US today agreed to a joint expedition later this year to sites of crashes identified by Kuhles over the past five years.

“Our main aim will not be to bring back any wreckage. We want to recover the mortal remains of our citizens, and take them back to our country,” Rear Admiral Donna L.Crisp, Commander of the Joint POW/Missing in Action (MIA) command of the US Navy, said after a meeting with Indian defence ministry officials.

The two countries have picked six of the eight sites in India that Kuhles identified during his frequent mountaineering trips to the Northeast.

The planes were all travelling along the route known as “the Hump” in aviation, between what is now Arunachal Pradesh and China’s Kunming in 1944. Their mission was to help the Chinese repel Japanese attacks.

“It’s wonderful. I’m thrilled to hear that they are finally going to begin expeditions,” Kuhles told The Telegraph.

Speaking over phone from the US, Kuhles credited the struggle of the “MIA families” for the move. “Like all governments, ours (the US) is also slow to act. But now, there appears to be some hope for the families who have waited all these decades,” he said.

Kuhles found the wreckage of eight planes — all in Arunachal — between 2003 and 2007.