True to the nickname of the US Air Force’s 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron—the “Night Owls”—Captain James Steadman and First Lieutenant Bob Beutel took off from Thailand under cover of darkness at half past two in the morning on November 26, 1971.
Professor Joseph Mortati knows most of what happened next: the two men, flying alone, refueled their F-4 Phantom in flight and then disappeared on the way to a target in Eastern Laos.
“I’ve been able to recreate all but about the last five minutes [they were] alive,” says Mortati, who wears silver bracelets with the two men’s names, “and it took me 16 years to piece that together.”
Since 2006, the USAF veteran—who flew F-4 Phantoms for seven years, including a stint with the 497th at Taegu Air Base in South Korea—has spent hundreds of painstaking hours each year attempting to find answers for families of service members who didn’t come home.
As of September 2022, 1,582 American service members are unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. Working in connection with the Center for MIA Research and the League of POW/MIA Families, Mortati has focused on 10 in his archival research, poring over thousands of pages of eyewitness statements, loss reports, declassified intelligence records, and more. Most cases are “off the scope,” with a last known position but no crash site. “This is not a criticism of the [Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency],” says Mortati. But due to time and resource constraints, “They’re just never going to get to those cases.”
The incomplete and often conflicting information can be like putting together “a jigsaw puzzle without knowing how many pieces there are,” he says. Thankfully, Mortati has for six years had the help of a team, working with a group of experts affiliated with the League of POW/MIA Families—including an imagery analyst, a linguist, a former intelligence officer, and an aviation parts specialist—to broaden the search. A mosaic of backgrounds and lenses gives each new piece of information a better chance of sparking a breakthrough.
A decade and a half of thorough, disciplined research has highlighted for Mortati the generosity of strangers—at museums, tire and aircraft manufacturers, government agencies, and beyond—who are willing to help him discover anything that might be a clue. He is reminded, in discussions with his research group, of the power of a team with diverse skills and a narrow mission. And he takes inspiration from the strength of families.
“War is really messy,” he says. “Long after the guns stop firing and the trumpets stop blaring, there’s a legacy of suffering.”
Mortati was introduced to this work by James Steadman’s daughter, Karin, who invited him to a league meeting in 2006. When they first corresponded in the early aughts, Mortati had just lost his mother. In his heartbreak, he understood the vast difference between his experience and that of Karin, whose father went missing when she was a little girl. “I was a grown man when my mom died, and I got to be with her when she passed away. I told her every single thing I ever wanted to say,” Mortati says.
He recognizes that more than just document analysis, the research represents “people whose lives were shattered. They’ve been waiting 50 years or more for answers, and in some cases, there aren’t going to be any.”
Each puzzle piece is a step closer to bringing them closure.