Although the U.S. government considers them to have been killed in action and as late as 1996 listed them as "accounted for", family members and POW/MIA advocates believe the four survived the crash and were taken captive and possibly sent to the USSR.

[5][3] Although the Paris Peace Accords had officially ended the United States' direct role in the Vietnam War, only a week after its signing the U.S. Air Force sent an EC-47Q electronic warfare collection aircraft on a night-time radio-direction-finding mission to monitor the Ho Chi Minh trail and locate North Vietnamese tanks moving south.

The plane, tail number 43-48636, belonged to the 361st Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron and began its mission from Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base.

A team consisting of three pararescuemen and an intelligence expert were on the ground for approximately an hour and found three bodies in the charred wreckage, those of Spitz, Primm and Bollinger in the cockpit, still strapped in their seats.

They point to information in official reports, such as the fact that their safety belts were unbuckled and their remains were not at the crash site, to support their beliefs that the rear crew had time to bail out.

[1] In addition, at approximately 8:00 AM on 5 February, U.S. Intelligence listening post at Phu Bai Combat Base in South Vietnam intercepted PAVN communications from the area indicating they were transporting four captured Airmen.

[1] Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Roger Shields said the government "acted 'precipitously' to declare Matejov and the other three missing crew members to be dead".

[1] In their book, The Men We Left Behind, Mark Sauter and Jim Sanders wrote that "The names were scratched from the list (of MIAs) because they were an inconvenience that would have complicated Henry Kissinger's life".