Battle of Lima Site 85 - Aftermath

Aftermath

With "encryption devices, codes, and software" left behind, 95 USAF airstrikes were used March 12–18 to destroy the mountaintop facilities (the last attack by Bill Plank in a Douglas A-1 Skyraider completed the task.) On July 18, Hmong commandos "reach the destroyed helipad and TSQ facility but were unable to hold the ridgeline 148th NVA Regiment". The Hmong Operation Pig Fat on November 1 to retake Phou Pha Thi was defeated.

The 11 U.S. MIA were later designated KIA/body not recovered, and between 1994 and 2004, 11 investigations were conducted by both Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and unilaterally by Lao and Vietnamese investigators on both sides of the border. An NVA soldier's recollections of the attack were documented in 1996. In 2002 former VPA soldiers of the raid said they had thrown bodies off the mountain and March 2003 videotape of dummies thrown from the cliff allowed recovery from a ledge 540 feet (160 m) below of boots in four sizes, five survival vests, and other fragments of material. By 7 December 2005 TSgt. Patrick L. Shannon's remains had been identified, on 14 February 2007 the remains of Capt Donald Westbrook were identified, and on July 16, 2012, the remains of Lt Col Blanton were identified.

Names of the LS-85 personnel killed were included on the Combat Skyspot Memorial on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam (its AN/MSQ-77 antenna was destroyed by a typhoon c. 2007).