Three civilians flying for the CIA’s Air America in 1971 during the “secret war” in Laos were among a record 218 identifications made by the Defense Department in fiscal year 2019 of Americans formerly missing from past wars.

The three— George Ritter, Roy Townley and Edward Weissenback — were on an Air America C-123K cargo aircraft that crashed and couldn’t be located during a resupply mission northeast of Sayaboury, Laos, on Dec. 27, 1971.

For more than 13 years, the CIA mounted the largest paramilitary operation it had ever undertaken during the clandestine war in Laos. Local hill tribes were trained and equipped to fight communist forces aligned with the North Vietnamese.

“Air America, an airline secretly owned by the CIA, was a vital component in the agency’s operations in Laos,” a CIA history account states.

In 1970, the agency had two dozen twin-engine transports, two dozen short- takeoff aircraft, 30 helicopters and more than 300 pilots and maintainers flying out of Laos and Thailand, according to CIA history.

A 1972 Air America report on the downed C-123K said the aircraft was loaded with 12,892 pounds of ordnance that, along with fuel, brought the aircraft close to its 60,000-pound maximum allowable weight.

In 1997 a joint U.S.-Lao team was led to the crash site. In 2017 and 2018 recovery teams excavated the site and recovered possible human remains, according to the accounting agency.

Director Kelly McKeague said in a release that the “noble mission of accounting for Americans missing from past conflicts continues to succeed because of the myriad partners (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) is fortunate to work with.

“Foreign governments, Department of Defense and other U.S. agency partners, and private organizations all contribute to providing more answers to families.”

Increased public-private partnerships have “significantly enhanced” accounting efforts by expanding capacity and capability, the agency said.

The mission of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which has a big identification lab and administrative offices at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, is to “provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.”

Eighty IDs were made in fiscal 2012, 60 in 2013, 87 in 2014, 80 in 2015, 164 in 2016, 201 in 2017, and 206 in 2018, according to the agency. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

Also among fiscal year 2019 totals were 38 identifications of American remains turned over by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the United States in July 2018.

Of the total identifications for fiscal 2019, 140 were from World War II, 73 from the Korean War and five from the Vietnam War.

Nearly half of the IDs for the year — 106 — originated from exhumations at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, according to the accounting agency.

Advances in science, and particularly DNA analysis, mean identifications can be made now that couldn’t be made decades ago.

In fiscal 2019, 54 of the Punchbowl IDs came from former USS Oklahoma crew members buried as “unknowns,” while 31 were from Korean War disinterments of unknowns, the accounting agency said.

However, Rear Adm. Jon Kreitz, the former Hawaii- based deputy director of the accounting agency, said last month that 5,300 Americans are still missing in North Korea.

In July 2018 North Korea turned over to the United States 55 sets of remains that were airlifted to Hawaii. DNA testing has shown that those 55 sets represent as many as 150 individuals, Kreitz said.

“President Trump’s securing the commitment from Chairman Kim for the repatriation and recovery of these remains was historic,” he said. “But the elusive part is that we have not yet been able to reach an agreement with the North Korean army to resume field operations there.”

The last U.S. mission into North Korea was in 2005.

“But we remain open to meeting with them to make an agreement to conduct recovery operations next spring,” Kreitz said.

The agency said it and its partners “remain committed to the research, investigation, recovery, and identification” of the nearly 39,000 unaccounted-for Americans assessed to be recoverable from past wars.