William H. Beale

After the USA aborted its CIA attack on Indonesia, Beale remained in CAT service. In 1959 the CIA airline became Air America, and by 1962 Beale was flying covert missions in support of US covert operations in Laos. On April 2, 1962, Beale was in a de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver trying to take off from an airstrip in northeastern Laos. The DHC-2 was overloaded, failed to become airborne and crashed at the end of the runway, killing all on board. He died from severe burns over 100 percent of his body.

In April 1958, CAT sent Beale to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, where he was assigned a Douglas B-26 Invader that had been painted black and had its markings obscured. On April 19, 1958, Beale flew the bomber to Mapanget, a rebel-held Indonesian Air Force base on the Minahassa Peninsula of northern Sulawesi. The rebels were Permesta, led by dissident local army officers opposed to the government of President Sukarno. Beale and his B-26 formed part of the CIA element in Permesta's Angkatan Udara Revolusioner ("Revolutionary Air Force") or AUREV. Beale flew his first AUREV mission on April 20, attacked Palu, the provincial capital of Central Sulawesi, with four 500 lb (230 kg) bombs followed by machine-gun fire. On April 21 he made a similar attack on the Indonesian Air Force base on the island of Morotai, damaging the runway and setting a line of fuel drums on fire. In the next few days Beale flew two more sorties attacking Palu.

William Henry Beale Jr. (October 25, 1920 – April 6, 1962) was a US military and paramilitary aviator. In the Second World War, he was in the USAAF and flew bombing missions in the northern Pacific theater. In the Permesta rebellion in Indonesia in 1958 he flew bombing missions for the CIA. His career ended on a CIA covert mission in Laos in 1962 when he was killed in a plane crash.