|
The US Army Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, recently identified the remains of a nine-man Navy OP-2E Neptune crew that went down in Laos in 1968. The OP-2E was flown by Cmdr. Delbert Austin Olsen and Lt. Arthur Charles Buck of VO-67. They departed Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB for a mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail to drop small acoustic and seismic sensors to track vehicles and troops on the ground. On board were seven other crewmembers and one small dog, the crew’s mascot. During Olsen and Buck’s last radio contact, the crew reported they were descending through dense clouds. Two other OP-2E crews working the trail that morning tried unsuccessfully to reestablish radio contact. A search of the area after the aircraft failed to return to friendly lines failed to find a trace of the aircraft or crew. All nine crewmen were listed as missing in action. A subsequent military review board amended the status of the nine crewmen to killed in action.
In April 1996, on the fourth try, a joint US/Lao People’s Democratic Republic team found the crash site in Khammouan Province. The lab was unable to safely send in a recovery team until March 2001. Another team excavated the site in 2002. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, using teeth uncovered at the site, obtained mitochondrial DNA sequence data that provided positive identification of the crew’s remains. Additional bone fragments were determined to be those of the dog.
|
