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## News Release

# Soldier Missing From Vietnam War Identified (Barnes)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that theremains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified andwill be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Capt. Charles R. Barnes, 27, of Philadelphia, Pa., will be buried May 2, in ArlingtonNational Cemetery near Washington, D.C. On March 16, 1969, Barnes and four other servicemembers departed Qui Nhon Airfields bound for Da Nang and Phu Bai, in a U-21A Ute aircraft.As they approached Da Nang, they encountered low clouds and poor visibility. Communicationswith the aircraft were lost, and they did not land as scheduled. Immediate search efforts werelimited due to hazardous weather conditions, and all five men were list as missing in action.

From 1986-1989, unidentified human remains were turned over to the U.S. from theSocialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) in several different instances. None of the remains wereidentified given the limits of the technology of the time.

In 1993, a joint U.S./S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command(JPAC), conducted investigations in Quang Nam-Da Nang, and Thua Thien-Hue Provinces.They interviewed a local Vietnamese citizen who supplied remains and an identification tagbearing Barnes’ name, which he claimed to have recovered from an aircraft crash site.

In 1999, another joint U.S./S.R.V. team interviewed additional Vietnamese citizens aboutthe crash and they were led to the crash site. In 2000, a joint U.S./S.R.V. team excavated the siteand recovered human remains and material evidence.

Scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory usedcircumstantial evidence, and forensic identification tools such as mitochondrial DNA – whichmatched that of Barnes’ sister – in the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, call (703) 699-1420 or visit the DPMO Web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo.

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