William Clare Coltman from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Allegheny county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: September 28, 1972
Death details: On December 19, 2001, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Colonel William Clare Coltman, missing from the Vietnam War.
Colonel Coltman joined the U.S. Air Force from Pennsylvania and was a member of the 430th Tactical Fighter Squadron. On September 28, 1972, he piloted an F-111A Aardvark on a solo strike mission over enemy territory in Vietnam. The aircraft crashed during the mission due to unknown causes, and Col Coltman was killed in the incident. Immediate search efforts along the Aardvark’s planned flight route failed to locate a crash site, and his body was not recovered at the time. In 2000, a joint U.S. and Vietnamese investigative team recovered remains from a crash site associated with Col Coltman’s F-111A. Forensic analysis eventually identified the recovered remains as those of Col Coltman.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency