Washington - For years the Pentagon believed Navy Captain Michael Scott Speicher was killed when he his plan was shot down by the Iraqis during the 1991 Gulf War, but his case remains a mystery.

His body was never found. The Pentagon concluded in 2001 after a review that he was missing in action, and following additional inquiries the Pentagon said Tuesday it still believes that to be the case, even though the intelligence community says he's dead.

Speicher, aged 33 at the time, became the first casualty of Operation Desert Storm while on the first bombing run over Iraq during the US-led military campaign to expel Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait.

The captain's F/A-18 Hornet was downed by Iraqi forces on January 17, 1991. It has been disputed whether he was struck by a surface-to air-missile or a missile fired from an Iraqi warplane.

In 2002, as then-president George W Bush was building the case for invading Iraq, the Pentagon switched the pilot's status again, declaring, based on alleged sightings, that he was captured and in the custody of Saddam's regime.

But in the statement released Tuesday, the Pentagon says it now believes those sightings have been "discredited," and has switched his status back to missing-in-action. The intelligence community determined in October that Speicher is no longer alive but without locating his body.

Speicher's family has resisted any attempts to officially declare that the pilot was killed-in-action. There was hope that the March 2003 invasion would shed light on Speicher's fate, but an on the ground investigation provided little information.

The captain's initials were found on a jail cell in the Iraqi city of Hakmiyah in April 2003, but they were later determined to be meaningless. (dpa)