(NEXSTAR) — On April 4, 1975, the first plane transport of Operation Babylift — the Vietnam War-era evacuation effort to bring Vietnamese orphans to adoptive parents — took off from Tan Son Nhut Airport before tragically crashing in a nearby marsh just 12 minutes later.
A total of 78 children and 35 personnel were killed, but many babies, like Aryn Lockhart, survived the ordeal. But even though Lockhart ultimately made it to the U.S., there were still many things lost in the crash.
Now a grown woman, Lockhart is searching for answers about her origins. All she has to go off of so far is a few tattered 50 year-old letters sent to her adoptive parents in anticipation of her arrival.
“In those letters, it says that they changed me out a couple of times and I was traveling under somebody else’s paperwork. So I 100% don’t even know my actual birth date,” says Lockhart. “I know absolutely nothing and so, there are a lot of holes in my particular story.”
Over the years, she’s been researching any threads that could hold the key — and that includes talking to other Operation Babylift babies.
“What I’ve found when I’ve met a lot of other adoptees is we just have this gaping hole in our history and we learn to live with it and some of us manage it in different ways,” says Lockhart.
Sadly, Lockhart says it’s unlikely that she’ll be able to find her birth parents with what little information she currently has. So she’s poured her attention into researching the operation in general, which began in 1997. Lockhart even made contact with the medical crew director on the flight — a woman who, it turns out, likely held her the day of the crash.
Even though some puzzle pieces have started lining up for her, she says there still remain too many unanswered questions. Now, Aryn is making the long journey back to Vietnam to take one last good effort.
“I think I’m gonna try to find my birth family because this is probably my last opportunity,” says Lockhart.
She’s already reached out to a caseworker in Vietnam who’s been able to connect other adoptees to their birth parents. Lockhart says if she manages to find her birth parents in Vietnam, she wants them to know one thing.
“[I want them to know] whatever choice or sacrifice that they felt that had to make, they can rest easy knowing that I am more than good.”