WHAT I CAN DO - I WILL -

The OV1B carried side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) housed in a long pod beneath the forward part of the fuselage and could maintain night surveillance and detect targets for Air Force gunships or fighter-bombers. The radar equipment scanned on either side of the aircraft, fashioning a radar map that could be reproduced photographically while the Mohawk was in flight.

On 28 September 1966, 1Lt. Jimmy Mac Brasher, pilot, and PFC Robert E. Pittman, observer, departed the Hue/Phu Bai airstrip in an OV1B Mohawk aircraft (serial #64-14266, call sign Spud 09) on a reconnaissance mission off the coast of North Vietnam.

At 0400 hours, a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) warning was broadcast for the area in which Spud 19 was located. At this time, radio and radar contact was lost with Spud 19. It is assumed that one or more of the SAM missiles launched that night hit the plane and that it crashed into the sea. No trace of the plane or crew was found. The last known location was about 40 miles due east of the city of Phuc Loi (and east-northeast of Vinh) in the Gulf of Tonkin. Both men were declared killed in action, body not recovered. No trace of the aircraft or the crew was ever found.

Biographical and incident of loss information was obtained from either POW/NET and/or Task Force Omega, Inc (unless otherwise noted). Additional information may be found via remembrances at The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund or The Virtual Wall Vietnam Veterans Memorial.