The search for Spooky 21

On Dec. 24, 1965, six men took off for what was supposed to be a six-hour mission targeting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. Follow the story of their flight and the decades-long search for their crash site.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail

Named for the North Vietnamese communist leader, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was more like a network of capillaries than a set route. Bomb one path and North Vietnam’s infamous Group 559 – a military team strung along the trail like a version of Pony Express way-stations and tasked with keeping it open – simply redirected traffic several hundred yards over to a similarly primitive route while they patched up the first one. The trail bed was dirt, stones or logs, and the trail itself no wider than needed to squeeze supplies down.

By 1965, it was a big problem for American and Southern Vietnamese forces. But the trail ran through Laos and Cambodia, and cutting it in half would have required an invading and occupying ground force.

Operation Tiger Hound

Spooky 21's mission was covert but vital to the war. It was part of a secret combat operation known as Tiger Hound, a search-and-destroy mission aimed at the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a series of dirt and stone paths hidden in the Laotian jungle that served as an enemy supply line. It connected the communist North Vietnamese military with its allies in the Viet Cong insurgency hiding in the south.

“Without the Ho Chi Minh Trail,” said military historian James Willbanks, “the war doesn’t go on.”

Spooky 21's targets

The crew's original target was a way station hidden beneath Laos’ tall trees, typically home to ammunition depots and anti-aircraft defenses. They were expected back at Da Nang at about 1:30 p.m.

Shortly after takeoff they received instructions to redirect to different target coordinates. The old target had been a patch of jungle about 100 miles straight west. The new one was another patch about 23 miles south of that, still about 100 miles from Da Nang.

Click to learn more about the modified AC-47 aircraft.

Lost in the Laotian jungle

Records indicate Spooky 21 turned west towards the new target. Jeffords’ airborne chatter during the next couple hours revealed nothing unusual. All appeared to be going to plan.

But more than halfway through the flight, at 10:56 a.m., two U.S. planes in the area picked up a UHF radio broadcast:

“Mayday, Spooky 21. Mayday.”

Click to learn more about the modified AC-47 aircraft.

The modified AC-47 aircraft

The AC-47 Spooky was the first in a series of aerial gunships developed to pour huge firepower down on ground targets during the Vietnam war.

Spooky was fearsome in fight. But scouring a jungle for targets in daylight, its big belly, slow turns and relatively low flight path could make it easy pickings for even simple Viet Cong air defenses.

Three miniguns were mounted on the plane's left side; the pilot would "orbit" target in a left-banked circular turn while guns fired.

Each GAU-2A minigun could fire 6,000 rounds per minute. A three-second burst could cover a football field-sized area with a bullet every couple of yards. The plane carried a lot of ammo, about 24,000 rounds. But if things got hairy, the guns could burn through that in less than three minutes.

The call sign “Spooky” alluded to its ability to break Viet Cong night attacks on American bases. But among the Viet Cong it was nicknamed “Dragon.” Tracer rounds, especially at night, made it look like the plane was spitting fire at the ground.
Image courtesy of the U.S. Airforce

False starts in the search for Spooky

Often, very little wreckage will be left to identify a crash site. Poor villagers scavenge aircraft wreckage. The metal sheeting becomes a new roof. Beams frame doorways, or are used to lift a hut above the flood zone. Wiring is used to tie walls together. Old bombs are hollowed out and used as water basins.

In 1993, a preliminary search team made it to a site near Spooky 21's final target, but found nothing there. According to Joint POW, MIA Accounting Command, the local village chief described the aircraft as being large with two propellers, one on each wing, and said it was a “Spooky” aircraft.

A promising site, far off course

In 1995 a military team scouring a rice paddy found a small amount of wreckage that could have been from the plane. The crash site was more than 70 miles from where they’d expected to find it.

After several visits, search teams called for a full excavation of the site in 1999. It was the size of three football fields. Red tape, weather and other delays, meant digging didn't start for two more years. They excavated the rice paddy four times between 2001 and 2011.

After 46 years missing, 16 years of searching the site and a decade of digging, what the search team uncovered was sent to a lab in Hawaii. JPAC teams had found enough to officially bring the crew home.

JPAC continues working “until they’re home”

The last search for Spooky was two years ago. Officials said searches usually follow a set pattern. They agreed to allow McClatchy to accompany a team involved in an entirely separate investigation, but in an area of Laos near where the hunt for Spooky 21 took place.

This case involves a Marine who died in 1970 during the Vietnam War when a helicopter landed hard and exploded into flames. The site is next to a remote village and across a deep and swift river. When the searchers first arrived, the only route across was three strands of bamboo the villagers had suspended by vines from a tree.

JPAC's base in Laos

The troops at the base camp U.S. forces share with the Laotian military are unarmed and wearing civilian clothes, a concession to the Lao government, which gets uneasy with the idea of American military personnel openly moving about inside the country. The conditions are spartan: crisp canvas tents on cement slabs, male and female latrines and showers, and a laundry room.

Searches for remains are common in Laos. More than 330 U.S. troops disappeared there during the Vietnam War. In its dense jungles and steep hills, even finding a site worth searching is difficult.

Click to see photos of the base.