Wright, Donald Lee
Air Force sms

Donald Lee Wright from Mt. Savage, Maryland, Allegany county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: November 24, 1969
Death details: On October 2, 1995,  Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Senior Master Sergeant Donald Lee Wright, missing from the Vietnam War.

Senior Master Sergeant Wright joined the U.S. Air Force from Maryland and was a member of the 41st Tactical Airlift Squadron. On November 24, 1969, he was the flight engineer aboard a C-130A Hercules on a forward air controller/illumination mission over Laos. While operating near Ban Salou, the Hercules was shot down by anti-aircraft fire, and SMSgt Wright was killed in the crash. Immediate search and rescue efforts were prevented by heavy enemy presence in the area, and a friendly aircraft that later passed over the crash site saw no signs of survivors. In 1993, a joint U.S. and Laotian search team recovered remains from a crash site associated with SMSgt Wright’s C-130A. In 1995, forensic analysis identified some of the recovered remains as those of SMSgt Wright.

Senior Master Sergeant Wright is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the Cemetery: National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency