Airman who vanished in 1983, found in California

Before he mysteriously disappeared and landed on the Air Force Most Wanted list, Capt. William Howard Hughes junior phoned home to tell his mother and father that he was going to the Netherlands.

It was July 17, 1983, and the Air Force was sending Hughes overseas on a mission to help Nato test aircraft surveillance systems. The 33-year-old airman, who worked as a lead surveillance analyst on a base in New Mexico had a top secret security clearance, according to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. He told his parents he was supposed to come back from the Netherlands on Aug. 1. But no one ever saw him again.

Investigators found his car at the Albuquerque International Airport. Finally, they obtained surveillance video that captured him withdrawing more than $28,000 (Dh102,844) from 19 different banks in the Albuquerque area on July 22. That led investigators to theorise he returned from the Netherlands early and then vanished. His family feared he had been abducted. Others speculated that he had defected — possibly to the Soviets.

Last week, nearly 35 years after he went missing, the Air Force finally found Hughes living in California under the fictitious name “Barry O’Beirne.” Hughes was arrested on June 6 on charges of desertion.

The US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service caught on to Hughes’s whereabouts during a passport fraud investigation

Hughes faces up to five years of confinement.