Bryan Knight was 5 years old when he said goodbye for the last time to his father, Roy A. Knight Jr., at Love Field in Dallas.

Fifty-two years later, Mr. Knight, piloting a Southwest Airlines flight on Thursday, brought back the remains of his father, an Air Force colonel who was killed in the Vietnam War, to the same airport.

On May 19, 1967, Colonel Knight was shot down during a strike mission on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, according to the military, which initially listed him as missing in action and then declared him dead in 1974. Scientists used a dental analysis to identify Colonel Knight’s remains this year.