
                      CASE SYNOPSIS:  LYON, DONAVAN LOREN

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Name:				Donavan Loren "Don" Lyon	
Rank/Branch:			O5/US Air Force	
Unit:

Date of Birth:			01 November 1934			
Home City of Record:		Hollywood CA
Date of Loss:			22 March 1968			
Country of Loss:		Laos	
Loss Coordinates:		163904N 1062857E	
Status (in 1973):		Missing In Action	
Category:			2		
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground:	F4C     
Other Personnel
In Incident:                    Theodore W. Guy (released POW)

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS:  Colonel Guy and Major Lyon comprised the crew of an F4C Phantom
fighter jet which flew over Laos on March 22, 1968.  Their mission took them
near the Aideo Pass through the mountainous border of South Vietnam and Laos a
few miles southwest of the demilitarized zone.

When their aircraft was shot down, Guy and Lyon ejected to land 120 yards apart
in rugged terrain.  Guy was subsequently captured by the North Vietnamese,
whose activities in Laos his mission was meant to thwart.  Although Lyon
clearly survived, his fate after landing on the ground is unknown.

Guy and Lyon's case is not unusual.  In several incidents of loss, pilot and
backseater are separated (partly because only one ejects at a time, thus
increasing the distance possible between them), not to be reunited.  In Laos,
both the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao forces were apt to be on the scene
to apprehend downed pilots, and neither was prone to hand their capture over to
the other force.

The Pathet Lao stated publicly that they held "tens of tens" of American
captives, but the U.S. did not include them in the agreements that ended the
war in Vietnam.  Therefore, these men were not released, and were not
negotiated for.  They were abandoned.

If Don Lyon was captured by the Pathet Lao, he could be among the hundreds that
experts believe are alive today.  If so, he was betrayed by the country he so
proudly served.
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