An American fighter pilot who went missing after his aircraft crashed in Lampang, Thailand, during World War II has been officially identified more than 80 years later, following a joint recovery effort involving Thai and US teams.
The US Embassy in Bangkok announced yesterday, June 29, that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) had identified the remains of 1st Lt. Franklin McKinney, whose aircraft crashed in Lampang province during the war.
According to the embassy, American and Thai personnel recovered the remains during a mission in March this year, 2026.
McKinney went missing on November 5, 1944. He was flying an F-5 Lightning, an unarmed photo-reconnaissance version of the P-38, on a planned 1,100-mile mission over eastern Burma and northern Thailand when his aircraft never returned.
After the war, US authorities were unable to locate his remains and declared them unrecoverable.
The breakthrough came in 2011 after severe floods inundated the Royal Thai Air Force Museum in Bangkok. While recovering documents, Air Chief Marshal Sakpinit Phromthep found an old Thai police report filed at the time of the crash, which provided a precise location.
Investigators also relied on eyewitness accounts from elderly villagers in Mae Kua, Lampang, including a woman who was a young girl when she saw the aircraft crash.
Earlier this year, a joint US-Thai team excavated a rice field in Mae Kua village, working for months through difficult, muddy terrain. The team recovered aircraft wreckage along with bones and teeth, which DPAA scientists used to formally identify McKinney’s remains.
The operation involved the Royal Thai Government, local officials in Lampang, archaeologists and students from Thammasat University, DPAA personnel and a partnership team from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In its statement, the embassy thanked the Royal Thai Government, Lampang officials, Thammasat University and the UCLA partnership team for supporting the recovery effort, adding that the identification will allow McKinney’s remains to be returned to his family after more than eight decades.
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