Lothar Gustav T. Terla, age 29, from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Monday, March 9, 1970
Death details: On March 9, 1970, an F-4E Phantom II (tail number 67-0282, call sign “Gunfighter 64”) with a crew of two took off from Da Nang Airbase to take part in a strike mission over Laos. The aircraft was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire as it passed over the target and crashed. Because of the darkness, no parachutes were witnessed. The Phantom’s crash site was eventually located, but no sign of survivors from the aircraft’s crew could be found. Captain Lothar Gustav Thomas Terla, who joined the U.S. Air Force from Pennsylvania, was a member of the 4th Tactical Fighter Squadron, and was aircraft commander aboard the Phantom when it went missing. He was lost with the aircraft and he remains unaccounted for. Today, Captain Terla is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com