The Navy yesterday announced that it has changed the status of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a Navy pilot lost in the 1991 Gulf War, from “missing/captured” to “missing-in-action.” Navy Secretary Donald Winter made the decision after a review of available information, including the recommendation of a recent status review board. Winter convened the board after the intelligence community concluded last October that Speicher is deceased, though his remains are unlocated. Speicher’s F/A-18 was brought down by “hostile action” on Jan. 17, 1991, according to the Navy announcement. (Initial reports cited an Iraqi surface-to-air missile, but later accounts, including one unclassified intelligence report, credited an Iraqi MiG firing an air-to-air missile.) He was initially declared “killed-in-action/body-not-recovered,” but this status was changed to MIA in 2001 and then to missing/captured in 2002 based on sighting reports in Iraq that have since been discredited, the Navy said.
A half-dozen pilots from one of the Air Force’s premier F-16 units, the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., have been awarded one of the service’s highest decorations for their role in Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.