The mysterious disappearance of a Colorado Air Force officer over South Vietnam has been solved after almost 40 years, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.
Maj. Perry H. Jefferson was a 37-year-old aerial observer on an O-1G Bird Dog on April 3, 1969, when radio contact was lost with his aircraft. The military searched for three days, turning up no signs of the plane.
It wasn’t until 2001, when a Vietnamese national living in California turned over human remains to authorities that he said were found at a site where two U.S. pilots crashed, the military said.
DNA and dental comparisons finally identified the remains as Jefferson’s, the military said.
After his disappearance, Jefferson’s wife, Sylvia, led a campaign to raise social consciousness for American servicemen held prisoner or lost during Vietnam, according to Denver Post reports in 1970.
Sylvia Jefferson, whose whereabouts could not be immediately ascertained, was one of the organizers of a group called Colorado Cares for POWs and MIAs.
Perry Jefferson was living in Northglenn and served as a technician in the Colorado Air National Guard when he was called to active duty with the 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron, according to news reports.
Jefferson will be buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on April 3, the military said.
It wasn’t clear how the Vietnamese national acquired the remains. The military did not release his name.
The remains of the pilot of the O-1G, Army 1st Lt. Arthur G. Ecklund, were turned over to U.S. officials in 1984 by a former member of the Vietnamese Air Force, and were not identified as Ecklund’s until 2000, the military said.
In 1994, a joint U.S./Vietnamese team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command interviewed two Vietnamese citizens regarding the crash of the 0-1G. The witnesses said the aircraft crashed on a mountainside and that the pilots were killed. They said two other men were sent a few days later to bury the pilots.
A team excavating the site found the plane’s wreckage but no remains, the military said.
Manny Gonzales: 303-954-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com.
