Danielson, Mark Giles
Air Force Captain
Mark Giles Danielson from Aurora, Colorado, Rio Blanco county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Sunday, June 18, 1972
Death details: On October 12, 1994, the Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JFA-FA) identified the remains of Captain Mark Giles Danielson, missing from the Vietnam War.
Captain Danielson entered the U.S. Air Force from Colorado and was a member of the 16th Special Operations Squadron. On June 18, 1972, he was the electronic warfare officer aboard an AC-130A gunship (tail number 55-0043, call sign “Spectre 11”) that took off from Ubon Airfield, Thailand, on an armed reconnaissance mission over A Shau Valley, South Vietnam. The aircraft was hit by an enemy surface-to-air missile and crashed near the border of Laos and Vietnam. Capt Danielson was killed in the incident and his remains could not be recovered at the time. In October 1993, investigators visited the crash site and recovered personal artifacts and human remains. Capt Danielson was identified among the remains recovered.
Source: National Archives, UPI, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency