WWII Pilot's Remains Identified More Than 8 Decades After Plane Disappeared During Spy Mission

More than 80 years after a WWII spy mission, WWII pilot’s remains were identified after his aircraft was lost in Southeast Asia. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said on July 1 that U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Franklin H. McKinney, a 21-year-old from Rhode Island, did not return from a reconnaissance mission on Nov. 5, 1944, flying an F5E-2-LO Lightning from Yunnanyi, China, toward targets in Thailand and Burma. The remains were accounted for on May 15. The article reports that after decades of research, DPAA concluded the plane was struck by lightning, exploded, and crashed in a wooded area in Ban Mae Kua, Sop Prap District, Lampang Province, Thailand. The search reportedly intensified after third-party researchers found a likely crash site in 2018, with possible remains discovered in 2022 for forensic testing. India’s? no—Thailand’s Royal Thai Air Force Museum records were cited. McKinney is memorialized at the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.