WWII pilot missing after secret spy mission finally accounted for more than 80 years later

A pilot who disappeared during a World War II spy mission has been accounted for, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced Wednesday.

Officials said U.S. Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Franklin H. McKinney, 21, of Rhode Island, was accounted for on May 15, 2026. He served as an airman with the 35th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron (PRS), 14th Air Force.

McKinney reportedly failed to return after departing from Yunnanyi, China, on a reconnaissance mission to photograph targets in Thailand and Burma.

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The U.S. Air Force indicated that the squadron carried out aerial espionage missions, flying deep into Japanese-controlled territory across China, Burma and Thailand to gather critical intelligence.

On Nov. 5, 1944, McKinney reportedly departed Yunnanyi, China, while piloting an F-5 Lightning.

The U.S. Air Force said his squadron, known as the "Redhawks," played a crucial role in helping "turn the tide of the war in China" by providing vital aerial mapping and intelligence on Japanese troop movements.

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However, the airbase lost contact with McKinney shortly after his departure.

Despite searches along his flight path to the China-Thailand border by personnel with the American Graves Registration Service, no evidence of a crash was found.

His remains were not accounted for after the war.

Around the same time, local officials in Thailand discovered what appeared to be the wreckage of an aircraft that had been struck by lightning in a wooded area, according to DPAA.

Citing a wartime report from the Royal Thai Air Force Museum, the agency said the aircraft exploded before crashing near Ban Mae Kua in the Sop Prap District of Lampang Province.

In 2018, third-party researchers located a crash site in a rice paddy of the Lampang province and linked it to McKinney's aircraft.

DPAA investigators then examined the site in 2019 and again in 2021 before a recovery team excavated the area in 2022, recovering possible human remains.

The remains were sent to a DPAA laboratory, where scientists used modern forensic techniques to identify McKinney.

Officials said McKinney's family will be briefed on the findings.

His name will also be memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.