Son flies home remains of Vietnam vet

Southwest Airlines brought the recently discovered remains of an Air Force pilot killed in the Vietnam War back to Dallas on Thursday. The pilot of the flight? The son of the deceased soldier.

Who was the missing airman? Col. Roy Knight Jr.’s plane was shot down in 1967 as he attacked a target on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. He ejected from the cockpit and was lost until a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency team found and identified his remains earlier this year. Knight’s son, Bryan, flew his father’s casket to Dallas Love Field Airport Thursday, the same place where father and his then-5-year-old son said goodbye for the last time 52 years ago.

Dig deeper: Watch scenes from the arrival of Knight’s flight in Dallas on Thursday. Witnesses said the entire airport went silent as the family and a military honor guard received the flag-draped casket.