Wreckage of T-28 light attack aircraft retrieved from Mekong river

By Thai Newsroom Reporters

SOME PARTS OF THE wreckage of a US-built T-28 Trojan aircraft were inadvertently found by villagers and then retrieved by police from Mekong river in Nong Khai today (Jan.23).

The remains of the North American Aviation T-28 Trojan light attack aircraft were retrieved by the Explosive Ordnance Disposal police from the sandy bed of the Mekong River in Thabor district of the northeastern province after they had been told of the unintended discovery by the local villagers who had gone fishing in the ebbing international river, the police said.

The turboprop, two-seat T-28, believed to have been deployed in counter-insurgency missions of the Lao air force during the Vietnam War, may have accidentally nosedived into the river as the unknown pilot may have suddenly lost control of his aircraft. The T-28’s crash into the river was believed to have occurred about six decades earlier, the police said.

Found in the wreckage and retrieved by the EOD police were the pilot’s sand-filled canopy and the aircraft’s wrecked nose cone, among other remains.

Deployed during the Vietnam War by the South Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao air forces were squadrons of T-28s, primarily in air-to-surface attack and counter-insurgency missions in the 1960s during which the US air force reportedly lost 23 of the trainer-turned-light attack aircraft fighting against North Vietnamese forces.

CAPTION:
Parts of a T-28 Trojan aircraft wreckage found in Nong Khai today, Jan. 23. 2024. Photos: Sanook.com

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