| Date: 6 July 1971 |
| Aircraft type: OV-10A Bronco |
| Serial Number: 67-14634 |
| Military Unit: 23 TASS, 504 TASG |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Nakhon Phanom |
| Name(s): |
| 1Lt Daniel Wayne Thomas (KIA) |
| Capt Donald Gene Carr (US Army) (KIA) |
| A Nail FAC Bronco disappeared while on a flight over the southernmost region of Laos. The aircraft is thought to have come down about 20 miles east of Muang Fandeng. Capt ‘Butch’ Carr was an Army Special Forces officer from Mobile Launch Team 3 of Task Force 1 Advisory Group which specialised in cross-border infiltration and intelligence operations. Capt Carr was being taken on a flight in support of an 8-man Special Forces reconnaissance team at the time of the incident. The crew encountered poor weather and they did not return to base at the appointed time. The reconnaissance team heard an explosion some distance away about 30 minutes after the last radio call from the aircraft. A five-day search failed to produce any evidence of the fate of the aircraft or its crew and, despite a report that an OV-10 pilot had been seen in captivity in early July, neither of the crew was recovered at the time. After the war several investigations were made in an effort to find the crash site of the OV-10 but all without result. However, in April 2014 a Vietnamese witness handed over a photograph of one of the crew’s ID tag and later in the year the crash site was at last located west of Ben Het and human remains recovered. It was apparent that both the crew had been in the aircraft when it crashed and the remains of Capt Carr were identified by forensic analysis in 2015 and those of 1Lt Thomas in 2017. |
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