U.S. Jet Flight to Vietnam Makes History

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - A U.S. passenger jet landed in Vietnam on Friday, the first time since the Vietnam War ended nearly 30 years ago.

United Airlines Flight 869 took off from San Francisco on Thursday and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, shortly after 10:00 p.m. local time (10 a.m. EST) Friday.

It was first U.S. commercial plane to touch down at Tan Son Nhat International Airport since the wartime capital of South Vietnam fell to the communists in 1975.
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In November 2003, the first U.S. Navy (news - web sites) ship since the Vietnam War docked on the Saigon River.

United Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy two years ago, is betting the daily flight to Vietnam will be a big moneymaker. The carrier says it expects air travel to Vietnam to grow by 10.5 percent a year in the next decade.

Among the 347 people on the flight was 48-year-old Van Trinh, one of the tens of thousands of Vietnamese who fled the country in boats after the war.

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