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Remains of Denver airman missing in Vietnam found

Associated Press
Vail, CO Colorado

DENVER, Colorado ” The remains of an Air Force officer from Denver have been identified nearly 40 years after he disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over Vietnam, the Defense Department said Tuesday.

Maj. Perry H. Jefferson was an aerial observer on an O-1G Bird Dog on April 3, 1969, when ground crews lost radio contact with the aircraft, the military said. A three-day search turned up no sign of the plane.

In 2001, a Vietnamese national living in California gave U.S. officials human remains that he said were found at a site where two U.S. pilots crashed, the military said.



Military researchers used DNA and dental comparisons to identify the remains as Jefferson’s.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the Vietnamese national acquired the remains. His name wasn’t released.

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Jefferson will be buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on April 3.

The remains of the pilot of the O-1G, Army 1st Lt. Arthur G. Ecklund, were found in 1984 but not identified as his until 2000.


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