Burnham, Mason Irwin
Air Force Captain

Mason Irwin Burnham, age 28, from Portland, Oregon, Multnomah county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Thursday, April 20, 1972
Death details: On October 1, 1999, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Captain Mason Irwin Burnham, missing from the Vietnam War.

Captain Burnham joined the U.S. Air Force from Oregon and was a member of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron. On April 20, 1972, he was the navigator aboard an F-4D Phantom II (serial number 65-0602) on a night escort mission over the southern border of Vietnam and Laos. Captain Burnham’s aircraft went down while attacking a target during the mission, and he was killed in the crash. Search and rescue efforts failed to locate his remains at the time. In 1994, a joint U.S./Vietnamese investigative team recovered remains from the Phantom’s wreckage that were later identified as those of Capt Burnham.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency