A United States pilot who disappeared whereas conducting a spy mission throughout the Vietnam Warfare has lastly been accounted for, navy officers stated Tuesday.
U.S. Air Drive Lt. Col. Donald W. Downing was assigned to the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, twelfth Tactical Fighter Wing, seventh Air Drive in September 1967, the Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company stated in a information launch. Downing, 33, was piloting one in all two plane in a nighttime armed reconnaissance mission over what was then often known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on Sept. 5, 1967.
Whereas the 2 planes have been on a run to the goal, the primary noticed a “giant, vibrant fireball within the air,” in accordance with the company. Downing didn’t reply to radio calls to his F-4C Phantom II. And although search and rescue efforts began at daylight, digital and visible searches of the realm discovered nothing.
U.S. Air Drive Lt. Col. Donald W. Downing.
Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company
Greater than a decade later, on April 28, 1978, Downing was reported as killed in motion. He was later posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, the DPAA stated. His title was recorded on the Nationwide Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the American Battle Monuments Fee’s Courts of the Lacking on the Nationwide Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, together with the names of different unaccounted-for troopers from the Vietnam Warfare.
The incident was investigated for many years, to little end result, the DPAA stated. Lastly, within the spring of 2024, a restoration workforce discovered life help gear, doable materials proof, plane wreckage, unexploded ordnance and doable osseous supplies — bones — at a web site in Quang Binh Province, Vietnam.
The DPAA makes use of the intersection of “historical past, diplomacy and science” to make identifications, Ashley Wright, a public affairs specialist with the company, instructed CBS Information in 2024. Researchers and consultants search archival data to be taught concerning the circumstances the place a fallen soldier was final seen, and investigative groups discuss to surviving witnesses and study the realm for clues. Restoration groups, like those that discovered the proof at Downings’ crash web site in 2024, are then despatched to the realm, Wright stated.
Then, as soon as the whole lot is again on the lab, a number of scientists mix their experience to assist make identifications. Forensic odontologists, a sort of dentist, can match proof to dental data. Checks that reveal a deceased individual’s weight loss plan are used to find out what nation a soldier was from — People usually tend to eat a corn-based weight loss plan, Wright stated. Relations are requested for reference samples of DNA, which may also help present a genetic match.
The proof from Downings’ crash was delivered to the DPAA laboratory in June 2024. The DPAA stated its scientists used anthropological evaluation, a number of types of DNA evaluation and materials and circumstantial proof to establish the stays as Downings’.
His household obtained a full briefing on his identification, the DPAA stated, although it didn’t specify which members that included. Downing was survived by his spouse and 4 kids, in addition to his mother and father and 4 siblings, in accordance with a information clipping revealed after his disappearance. The information clipping stated that Downing had been reported lacking in motion just some days earlier than the couple’s seventh marriage ceremony anniversary.
A rosette will likely be positioned subsequent to his title on the Courts of the Lacking to point that he has been accounted for. He will likely be honored with a funeral at Arlington Nationwide Cemetery.
Extra from CBS Information
Kerry Breen