(NEXSTAR) — Hope turned to heartbreak when a cargo plane loaded with Vietnamese orphans — headed to America — crashed 50 years ago this April. It was a Vietnam War-era evacuation effort known as Operation Babylift and dozens of the young children aboard the plane tragically died in the accident.
Devaki Murch, now a grown woman, was a baby aboard that ill-fated flight. As explained by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the plane — carrying 250 children, in addition to volunteers and nurses — crashed 12 minutes post-takeoff after the cargo door locks failed and the door blew off. All-in-all, 78 children and 35 personnel were killed.
While the older children who were in the plane’s cargo area died, the babies, like Murch, who were strapped in the upper portion of the cabin, made it out alive. She talks about her life experience in the video at the top of this page.
She’s now working to preserve the history of Operation Babylift and those who, like her, came to the U.S. and were adopted. She created the traveling exhibit “Operation Babylift: New Perspectives” to show off these very personal artifacts around the country, so everyone can learn the story of Operation Babylift.
“When you’re dealing with humans, you’re dealing with sensitive emotions,” says Murch. “You’re dealing with history. You really, really need to do it properly.”
The project naturally led her to meeting fellow Operation Babylift adoptees, she says. She says a visit back to Vietnam in 2005 is the first time she actually met other Babylift adoptees.
“In the last two months, I met a few of the adoptees — one of whom was in the plane crash with me,” says Murch. “But there are shared stories. You meet these people and you recognize them because you have the same shared history together. You’ve never met them but somehow they can tell your story and you don’t know them at all.”
The post Vietnam War: Operation Babylift adoptee unites with others appeared first on KTLA.
