A Final, Poignant Flight in the Famed ‘Hanoi Taxi’

Piloting the same plane that rescued him three decades ago, a former American prisoner of war returned to Vietnam on Friday to fly home remains thought to be those of two fallen comrades.

Air Force Reserve Maj. Gen. Edward Mechenbier saluted two aluminum cases draped in American flags as they were loaded onto the C-141, dubbed the Hanoi Taxi by POWs who rode it home after their release.

Mechenbier said it was fitting that the last flight of his military career should be at the controls of the blue and white craft that flew him to freedom on Feb. 12, 1973, after his release from nearly six years inside Hoa Lo prison, nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton by POWs.

“I consider myself among the very, very lucky to be alive and still be on flying status after all these years,” the 61-year-old Mechenbier said.

Based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, Mechenbier flies with the 445th Airlift Wing. He is the last Vietnam-era POW still serving in the military and the oldest pilot still flying. He retires next week.

The plane, which has remained in constant service since the war, has become something of a flying museum. Decades-old photos of the POWs’ homecoming line its crude interior, along with the signatures of the released prisoners. Emblazoned on the outside are the words “Return With Honor.”

After about three hours at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, the plane took off for a U.S. military forensics laboratory in Hawaii, where the remains will be identified.

Mechenbier was on his 80th mission in Vietnam when his F-4C Phantom II fighter jet was shot down in June 1967.

He adopted a Vietnamese girl in 1975, and he has a number of Vietnamese American friends in Beavercreek, Ohio, who had urged him to return to the city where he was imprisoned.