MOHAWKS LOST - Flying in the CIA's Secret War in Laos Quotes

“found. However, in my research for this book, I come across the same incident with the same guys only the location is in the far northwest of North Vietnam and to the north of the PDJ and more along the Chinese border. In that case, these guys were probably flying out of Udorn in the CIA’s secret war and were running SLAR about a hundred miles further to the north of the PDJ than where I had over a hundred night missions. In that case, they may have been brought down by an SA-2 SAM, but more likely they were jumped by Soviet MiGs the North Vietnamese were flying, and as such was the same fate as some other 20th ASTA/131st guys we know we lost to MiGs. I suggest this because the SAMs were mostly kept in and around Hanoi and Haiphong harbor or down the coast towards Vinh, where the other account of this loss indicated. If so, the Army would have manufactured the account of a SAM downing the Mohawk on an RP-2 mission off the coast rather than give information about our years of CIA operations up against the Chinese border. During Lam Son 719 in the spring of 1971 I took a SAM missile in southern North Vietnam while flying an IR night mission.”
― Gerald Naekel, MOHAWKS LOST - Flying in the CIA's Secret War in Laos