Hanoi Taxi

Hanoi Taxi is a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter strategic airlift aircraft (serial number 66-0177) that was in service with the United States Air Force and became famous for bringing back the first returned prisoners of war in Operation Homecoming.

[2] For much of the late 1960s and early 1970s, 66-0177 flew out of Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California with the 63rd Military Airlift Wing (MAW).

On February 12, 1973, this particular aircraft, then a C-141A, was flown to Gia Lam Airport, near Hanoi, North Vietnam in the first mission of Operation Homecoming, the repatriation of former American prisoners of war.

On May 5, the Hanoi Taxi repeated the feat by flying approximately 100 former Vietnam POWs to Clark Air Base, The Philippines.

Later in her career she was transferred to the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) Area A in Ohio.

In 2002 the aircraft's history was discovered by her crew chief while she was undergoing maintenance, and shortly thereafter she was repainted in the white-over-grey livery she wore in 1973 during her evacuation mission to Hanoi.

[8] In 2005, Hanoi Taxi was one of the aircraft marshalled by the Air Force to provide evacuation for those seeking refuge from Hurricane Katrina.

Recently released United States POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps being flown on board the Hanoi Taxi from Hanoi, North Vietnam to Clark Air Base , Philippines , March 1973.
Hanoi Taxi after her 2002 repainting to 1970s livery. Other C-141s with the standard Air Force livery can be seen in the background
Volunteers from Dobbins, ARB , Ga, shuttle a patient who arrived there on Hanoi Taxi . About 100 Hurricane Katrina victims were airlifted to Dobbins for transportation to hospitals in Atlanta.