NORFOLK, Va. — Captain Thomas Edwin Scheurich, a Vietnam War pilot missing in action for 57 years, was repatriated to Norfolk on Friday.

His remains were identified earlier this year at the crash site of his plane, which vanished on March 1, 1968, after completing a bombing mission. His children, Tom Jr. of Virginia Beach and Marianne of Richmond, attended the homecoming, with burial set for Nov. 14 at Arlington National Cemetery.

Scheurich was assigned to Attack Squadron 35, Air Wing 9. He chartered a plane from Naval Station Oceana in December 1967 and deployed aboard the USS Enterprise. He sent valentines to his family in Virginia Beach just two weeks before his disappearance.

Forensics showed the A-6 that Scheurich had been piloting on that March evening had dropped its bombs and headed back to base. But Scheurich and the aircraft’s bombardier-navigator, Lt. Richard Lannom, never returned. Decades later, an eyewitness account of a plane crash from that night led investigators to the site.

Lannom’s remains were identified in 2018. Six excavations later, additional remains were recovered in 2024, only 40 yards from where his plane made impact. Early this year, Scheurich’s remains were identified.

“My dad was a really, really smart farm kid,” Scheurich Jr. previously told The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press. “He was a very easygoing, mild mannered person — a very loving, caring guy.”

A beloved husband, father and son, Captain Scheurich’s loss was long felt by family and friends from Hampton Roads to his native Nebraska.

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