Walker, Michael Stephen
Air Force Captain
Michael Stephen Walker from Columbia, Louisiana, Caldwell county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Tuesday, July 15, 1969
Death details: On July 15, 1969, a F-4D Phantom (tail number 66-7603, callsign: Cobra 61 ) with a crew of two took off from Phu Cat Air Base, South Vietnam, to take part in a two-plane strike mission against targets in Laos. As the Phantom made its pass on the target, it burst into flames for unknown reasons, skipped off a mountaintop, and crashed in the vicinity of (GC) YC 633 018. Witnesses in the other aircraft did not report seeing any parachutes emerge from the Phantom before it went down. Attempts to contact the aircraft’s crew by radio were unsuccessful, and search and rescue teams were unable to locate a crash site. Following the end of hostilities, the remains of the Phantom’s navigator were returned to U.S. custody and identified; however, the other crew member remains unaccounted for.
Captain Michael Stephen Walker, who joined the U.S. Air Force from Louisiana, was a member of the 389th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 37th Tactical Fighter Wing. He was the aircraft commander aboard the Phantom, and was lost with the aircraft. He was not seen or heard from again, and his remains have not been recovered following the incident. Today, Captain Walker is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency