DENVER, Colo. -- He died during the Vietnam war, but was never found.

Maj. Perry H. Jefferson's family worried he had ended up a prisoner of war.

"The thought of him wandering around in Vietnam was not a good one," said Jefferson's brother Michael.

Michael Jefferson was asked for a DNA sample one year ago, after the Department of Defense says, a Vietnamese national living in California turned over human remains recovered from the site where Jefferson's plane went down.

"That was the first thing after 30 years of not knowing anything," Michael Jefferson said.

His brother was an aerial observer doing photo reconnaissance over a mountainous region in Vietnam, when contact with the plane was lost on April 3, 1969.

"The best part of the whole thing was to know he actually died in the crash," Michael Jefferson said.

Jefferson's family had saved newspaper clippings with headlines about heroes who did not return.

Now, Maj. Jefferson's remains will return and be buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery next April.

His brother said this news offers hope to other families missing loved ones lost at war.

"I hope people can get the closure I got. It's tremendous," he said.

For more information about the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, go to dtic.mil/dpmo.