On September 17, 1972, an A-6 Intruder (bureau number: 157028; call sign: Ray Gun 504) with a crew of two embarked on a solo nighttime armed reconnaissance mission over northern Vietnam. Final radio contact with the pilot occurred as he approached North Vietnamese air space. Seven minutes later another aircraft in the area reported seeing an orange explosion (vicinity of48Q XJ 387 158) on the route the A-6 should have been following. A search and rescue effort was launched but had no success.

Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Richard Buell was born in Louisville, KY August 24, 1939. His parents Louis and Libby Buell later retired in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He joined the U.S. Navy after graduating from Kankakee Illinois High School in 1957 and attending Purdue University in 1958. After boot camp at Great Lakes RTC in 1958, he attended Electronics “A” School and was subsequently accepted into the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, RI and later graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy on June 5, 1963. He was accepted into the Naval Air Observer program and earned his NAO wings in Corpus Christi, TX in 1964. His first assignment was with AEWRON 13 in Argentina, Newfound serving as a navigator aboard the Constellation aircraft working the DEW Line from 1964-1965. His next assignment was with AIRDEVRON 6 out of Quonset Point, RI making several flights to Antarctica navigating a C-130 from 1965-1967. After serving as an instructor at the USNA in Annapolis, MD from 1968-1970 he was assigned to VA-42 at NAS Oceana VA and trained as a Bombardier Navigator (BN) on the A-6A Intruder. He then served with Attack Squadron 35. He was the BN/naval flight officer aboard the A-6 Intruder when it disappeared, his remains were not recovered and still classified as MIA. Today, Lieutenant Commander Buell is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, on the wall of Bancroft Hall in Annapolis, MD and at Woodland Cemetery in Xenia, Ohio.