Records Search Form

You may search the Vietnam Air Losses database by using this form. Choose the search terms you want to use, and enter them into the appropriate fields (or choose a drop-down box). You will then be presented with a list of results that met your search criteria, provided there is any information in the database. You may then click on a record to retrieve all of the data in the database for that loss. [Note: Hover your mouse cursor over a field to see additional instructions pop up.]

In this form, a search using either or both of the Names boxes or the Disposition box will return a list of names and associated data; if the Names boxes or the Disposition box are not used, the system will return a list of aircraft with associated data. In both instances, clicking on the date will retrieve all the data for that loss.

Full-Text Search of the Narratives

Each loss in our database contains a Narrative of the circumstances surrounding the loss. Sometimes, there is a great deal of information; at other times the information is scarce. We have done our best to ensure that anything included is as correct as we can confirm and is consistent with, or copied from, official reports. In a few instances, we have included the names of aircrew or other participants within the Narrative because we may not know which aircraft the individuals were in, or they were not flying in the aircraft lost but participated in the event in some way. Of course, geographic names, Operations, call signs, military operating areas, etc., are often mentioned in the Narrative.

The following form may be used to search for keywords within the Narratives. You may use whole words or phrases to try to narrow your search. Going back and forth between the upper search form on this page and the Narrative Search Form may help to focus on the event of interest. The two forms do not interact with each other. Each Search button will conduct a database search to find the information included in the boxes associated with that button.

This search form can employ search operators, such as + (results must include the word), - (results must exclude the word), * (a wildcard representing any number of letters only at the end of a word), ( ) (to group words or phrases for adding operators that apply to all words in the group), > or < (to increase or decrease the relevance value of a keyword), and " " (defining an exact phrase that must contain everything between quotation marks to be included in the results returned). You may click here for additional search help.

Using the Narrative Search Form, the system will return a list of dates, along with all aircraft types and the last names of all personnel associated with the Narratives that meet the search criteria, listed in order of relevance to the search terms (the more times the search terms appear in a Narrative the higher the relevance).  In all instances, clicking on the date will retrieve all the data for that loss.

NOTE: To use this form, you must have keywords or phrases in the search box. Searching for dates alone will fail. Use the form at the top of the page for that kind of search. The date drop-downs on this form are provided solely to help you to narrow a search that may return too many results to be useful, for example, if you entered "khe sanh" as your search terms. You would receive a list of over 60 Records that have "Khe Sanh" in the text of the Narrative, but you may have been interested only in the records of losses that occurred in 1969 and were related to "Khe Sanh." In that event, you would put "khe sanh" in the Narrative Keywords block and choose 1969 from the Year drop-down option.