| Date: 16 September 1971 |
| Aircraft type: A-1H Skyraider |
| Serial Number: 52-134622 |
| Military Unit: 1 SOS, 56 SOW |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Nakhon Phanom |
| Name(s): |
| Capt Frederick C Boli (Survived) |
| A pair of Skyraiders was making a dusk strike near Ban Len in the Plain of Jars when one of the aircraft (call sign Hobo) was damaged by small arms fire. As Capt Boli was making his sixth pass on a Pathet Lao troop concentration, he heard bullets strike the aircraft’s fuselage and the engine began to lose oil pressure. He headed south and attempted to land the Skyraider at a short airstrip at Ban Nam Tia code-named LS-20A. On touching down the tyres blew and the aircraft left the runway at which point Capt Boli retracted the undercarriage to stop the aircraft before it ran into a cliff. The aircraft was damaged but repairable but it was then totally wrecked when it was dragged off the runway destroying the undercarriage and then dropped by a CH-54 Skycrane which was attempting to fly it out of the airstrip in a high wind. At this stage of the war the 1st SOS was operating a mixture of Skyraider models made up of seven A-1Es, two A-1Gs, 13 A1-Hs and six A-1Js. |
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