A Lockheed Constellation L-1049, similar to the aircraft that disappeared. [Credit: Ruth As]
Key Takeaways:
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, carrying 93 U.S. Army soldiers on a secret mission to Vietnam, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on March 15, 1962, becoming one of the biggest aviation mysteries of the era with no trace of the aircraft or its 107 occupants ever found.
The soldiers aboard Flight 739 were lost at the very beginning of the Vietnam War but are not officially recognized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Families of the lost, 60 years later, continue to lobby for the inclusion of their loved ones' names on the national memorial, while a monument in Columbia Falls, Maine, now serves as a dedicated place of remembrance.
Sixty years ago, as the U.S. was becoming more involved in the opening salvo of the Vietnam War, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation was making its way west.
The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) charter flight was operating under Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, and was headed to Saigon, leapfrogging across the South Pacific by way of Honolulu, Wake Island, and Guam.
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