Boun Oum Airways History

Boun Oum Airways

In mid-1964, using resources from both Air America, Inc. (AAM) and Bird & Son, the CIA created another Laotian airline, Boun Oum Airways (BOA). Bird & Son "lent" a Dornier Do-28 and financial management to a new airline while AAM lent a Helio Courier and provided aircraft maintenance. The airline was ostensibly owned by Prince Boun Oum of Laos and was created with the intention of flying missions in Laos with Asian crews (as opposed to Caucasian crews) to create plausible deniability in the event of a shoot-down. The airline was based at Savannakhet, Laos.

BOA’s initial pilot, Capt. Boonrat Comintra was ex-Royal Thai Air Force and was certified in both aircraft by personnel from each of Bird & Son and AAM. The airline’s first contract was re-supplying road watch teams in the Mu Gia Pass.¹

In November of 1964, BOA acquired a Bell 47G-3B-1 Sioux helicopter which crashed on its first mission. After 1965 and the purchase of Bird & Son by Continental Airlines, BOA expanded using aircraft on loan from Continental Air Services Inc.(CASI) and soon came under CASI’s control and management. The airline prospered and added additional airframes (on loan from CASI), including two C-47s, two Piper P18 Super Cubs, a Beech Tradewind and an additional Do-28.

In December of 1965 one C-47 crashed after takeoff from Vientiane and the second disappeared in April of 1966 while dropping supplies near Ban Song. Despite these losses, BOA continued operations. Soon CASI pilots were flying BOA designated aircraft on missions.

Since 1963, the CIA had been operating project HARDNOSE, sending in reconnaissance teams for trail-watching along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. HARDNOSE continually experienced language problem difficulties and was continually challenged to find English-fluent road watchers. Project HARK was the logical successor to HARDNOSE. The Hark-I was a modified USAF survival radio. The road watcher would press one button for each truck he spotted, another button for each soldier, different buttons for time and location and one last button that would burst transmit the information to aircraft overflying the area of operations.

BOA, through CASI, bid on the HARK relay flight contract with the CIA beating Air America who had proposed flying the missions in either Volpars or Beech C-45s. Soon BOA Do-28s were flying night missions over the Ho Chi Minh trail to gather and relay the HARK transmissions. Within a week of beginning its execution of the HARK contract a Do-28 flown by a CASI pilot, C.V. Stone crashed into a hanger on take-off. Following the crash the CIA pulled the HARK contract from BOA and transferred it to Air America who would fly the missions in modified Volpar Turbo 18s. On March 15, 1967 Air America Volpars began flying the Hark relays.

1967 was a harsh year for BOA. In May, one of the two Do-28s was lost in a heavy rainstorm near Mahaxay while dropping supplies. This was the final accident for BOA. By mid-1967 it would be fully integrated with the CASI and cease to officially exist.

No information on insignia, uniforms or aircraft markings for Boun Oum Airways has been found.

1 Kenneth Conboy, War in Laos (Carrollton, Texas: Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc.) 1994.

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