| Date: 23 March 1961 |
| Aircraft type: C-47B Skytrain |
| Serial Number: 44-76330 |
| Military Unit: 315 AD Detachment on TDY from Osan |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Vientiane |
| Name(s): |
| 1Lt Ralph Wayne Magee (KIA) |
| 1Lt Oscar Branch Weston (KIA) |
| 2Lt Glenn Matteson (KIA) |
| SSgt Alfons Aloyze Bankowski (KIA) |
| SSgt Frederick Thomas Garside (KIA) |
| SSgt Leslie Verne Sampson (KIA) |
| Maj Lawrence Robert Bailey (US Army) (POW) |
| WO1 Edgar Wilken Weitkamp (US Army) (KIA) |
| During the increasingly tense situation in Laos in 1960 the USAF had detached a small number of aircraft from the 315th AD to monitor the Soviet airlift and locate airfields that were being constructed with Soviet and North Vietnamese assistance. On 23 March 1961 a C-47 took off from Vientiane for a flight to Saigon via the Plain of Jars region where it was intended to gather radio intelligence from several Soviet-built airstrips in the Xieng Khouangville area. The aircraft was hit by Pathet Lao AAA or small arms fire and lost a wing and crashed about 4 miles northwest of Phon Savan airfield, Xiangkhoang province. Maj Bailey and WO1 Weitkamp were assigned to the Army Attaché Office at Vientiane. Maj. Bailey, who always wore a parachute when he flew, jumped from the falling aircraft and was captured. He was flown in an An-2 Colt biplane to Sam Neua, the Pathet Lao headquarters near the border with North Vietnam, and spent 17 months as a POW until released on 15 August 1962 following the signing of the Geneva Accords on Laos. This was the first US aircraft lost in action and the first US casualties in Southeast Asia since the Second World War. In July 1991 a joint US-Lao investigation team located the graves of the seven airmen who died and recovered identifiable remains of Garside, Magee, Matteson and Sampson.
This was not the first hostile act commited by the Pathet Lao against a US aircraft in Laos. The US Ambassador in Laos had a VC-47, which was sometimes used for surveillance flights and it was shot at and damaged on one such flight on 23 December 1960. |
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