Museum features jet that transported Vietnam POWs

DAYTON — A jet that transported American prisoners of war to U.S. soil during the Vietnam war has moved to a new hangar at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio.

The Air Force C-141 Starlifter, dubbed the “Hanoi Taxi”, was rolled into a new, $40.8 million hangar at the Dayton museum last month, The Dayton Daily News reported.

Museum visitors will be able to walk inside the cargo bay through a rear ramp door to better understand how airmen did their job. The display will be open to the public next June.

Former Air Force fighter pilot Paul Kari said he was on the first flight out of Hanoi in 1973 after he was a prisoner of war for more than seven years in a prison camp.

“I would say that although fighter pilots would say fighter planes are the most beautiful, this one supersedes it because it brought us home to freedom, and that’s the most precious thing,” Kari said.