The U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has thanked the Vietnamese government for cooperation in finding and identifying the remains of an American pilot who went missing 52 years ago during the war in Vietnam that ended in 1975, ABC News reported on Thursday. 

The remains found have been identified to belong to U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Ronald W. Forrester, who suddenly stopped all contact and went missing while piloting an A-6A Intruder along with his co-pilot during a nighttime mission over the jungles of northern Vietnam in 1972, when he was 25 years old, according to a statement from the DPAA released on Tuesday.

“After entering the target area, Forrester’s aircraft ceased radio communications and never returned to base. Search and rescue teams could not locate any trace of the aircraft or the crew in Le Thuy District, Quang Binh Province,” ABC News cited U.S. officials.

In September 1978, the Marine Corps changed Capt. Forrester’s initial Missing In Action (MIA) status to Killed in Action, they added.

However, after decades of probe into the crash without results, investigators last year discovered remains and material evidence that they believed to be associated with missing pilots.

To identify Forrester’s remains, scientists from the DPAA used “circumstantial evidence” recovered from the crash site as well as mitochondrial DNA evidence they were able to obtain, officials said.

DPAA confirmed that Forrester’s remains will finally be buried on October 7 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County of the U.S. State of Virginia.

Vietnam and the U.S. have cooperated in searching for and repatriation of remains of American MIAs since the Paris Peace Accords was signed on January 27, 1973, according to the Vietnam News Agency.  

Over the past more than 50 years, Vietnam has handed over more than 1,000 sets of remains to the U.S. and helped identify 735 MIA soldiers.

The latest handover took place at a ceremony held in the central city of Da Nang on September 10, when the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons handed over to the U.S. side a casket containing the remains that experts from both countries believed to be from U.S. servicemen missing during the Vietnam War.

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