Death of a U.s. Pilot in Crash of a U.s. L-19 Reconnaissance Plane in Vi Nh Bin
Central Intelligence Agency · 1972
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Description
An American pilot died in the crash of an L-19 reconnaissance plane in Vinh Binh province, an October 1972 report states. The L-19 Bird Dog was a small, slow spotter plane whose crews flew low over battlefields. Vinh Binh lies in the Mekong Delta's flat, wet south.
Bird Dog crews directed artillery and strikes, work that kept them over enemy guns daily. Their losses were steady and their planes left little wreckage to find. A confirmed death in a Delta crash closed one such crewman's case. The file honors the spotter war's risk with a plain provincial record.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Central Intelligence Agency |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 1972 |
| COLLECTION | DECLASSIFIED |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 3247 |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | Public Domain |
| RIGHTS | PUBLIC DOMAIN |
| SOURCE | Internet Archive — CIA Reading Room mirror |
Source: https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0000009981