Hoskins, Donald Russell
Air Force Technical sergeant

Donald Russell Hoskins, age 43, from Madison, Indiana, Jefferson county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Wednesday, April 26, 1972
Death details: On March 27, 2006, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Technical Sergeant Donald Russell Hoskins, missing from the Vietnam War. Technical Sergeant Hoskins joined the U.S. Air Force from Indiana and was a member of the 345th Tactical Airlift Squadron. On April 26, 1972, he was the flight engineer aboard a C-130E Hercules (tail number 64-0508, call sign “Spare 813”) on a night resupply mission over An Loc City, Vietnam. The Hercules was downed by ground fire during the mission, and TSgt Hoskins was killed in the crash. Immediate search efforts for the aircraft’s crew were unsuccessful, and his remains were not recovered at the time. In the years following the war, U.S. and Vietnamese search teams recovered remains that forensic analysts eventually identified as those of TSgt Hoskins.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency