Fanning, Joseph Peter
Air Force Major

Joseph Peter Fanning from Long Island City, New York, New York City county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Decemer 13, 1968
Death details: On December 13, 1968, a C-123K Provider (tail number 54-0600, call sign “Candlestick 44”) with a crew of seven left Nakhon Phanom Air Base, Thailand, for a mission over Savannakhet Province, Laos. The Provider was the forward air controller for another aircraft on the same mission, and the two aircraft collided. The crews of other aircraft in the area saw a large fireball that seemed to break up into three smaller fireballs and crash. It was later determined that one of the aircraft broke in two during the collision, accounting for the three fireballs observed. The pilot of the C-123K parachuted to the ground and was picked up by a search and rescue (SAR) team later the same day. He was the only individual to survive the collision; no other parachutes were observed and no other rescue beeper signals were received. SAR efforts continued for several more hours after rescuing the pilot but no other remains were found or recovered.

First Lieutenant Joseph Peter Fanning, who joined the U.S. Air Forces from New York, served with the 606th Special Operations Squadron. He was the copilot of the C-123 when it collided with another aircraft, and his remains were not recovered. Subsequent to the incident, and while carried in the status of missing in action (MIA), the U.S. Air Force promoted First Lieutenant Fanning to the rank of Major (Maj). Today, Major Fanning is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency