Sanders, William Stephen
Air Force Captain

William Stephen Sanders, age 27, from Winthrop, Maine, Kennebec county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Tuesday, June 30, 1970
Death details: On June 30, 1970, an OV-10A Bronco (tail number 68-3807, call sign “Nail 44”) with a crew of two, including the pilot and a U.S. observer, took off from Nakhon Phanom Airfield, Thailand, on a Forward Air Controller (FAC) mission over Laos. While responding to a call for help from an Army unit southeast of Khe Sanh, near the Laos/South Vietnam border, “Nail 44” sustained battle damage and crashed. Other aircraft flying in the area reported seeing only one parachute belonging to the observer aboard the OV-10. The observer was later recovered by search and rescue forces near the crash site. The pilot remains unaccounted for.

Captain William Stephen Sanders entered the U.S. Air Force from Maine and was a member of the 23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron. He was the pilot of this Bronco when it crashed and he was lost with the aircraft. His remains were not recovered. Today, Captain Sanders is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency