On October 26, 1967, during the Vietnam War, US Navy aviator John McCain was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile on a mission against a Hanoi power plant and parachuted wounded into Trúc Bạch Lake.

A monument commemorating the capture (not, as sometimes claimed, McCain's detention)[2] was erected in 1985[3] on the western shore on Thanh Niên Road.

Its inscription reads: On 26 October 1967 near Trúc Bạch Lake, citizens and military of the capital Hanoi captured US Navy Air Forces pilot Major [sic] John Sidney McCain, who was flying an A-4 aircraft that crashed near Yên Phụ power station.

This was one of ten aircraft shot down that day.Although the monument was not built to honor McCain, some visitors to Hanoi have chosen to pay respects to him there.

In 2015 the monument was cleaned at McCain's request[3] and the inscription was revised to correct his name, remove the derogatory epithet "tên", and identify his service branch as Navy rather than Air Force.