First US flight to Vietnam for 30 years

For the first time since the war ended nearly 30 years ago, a US passenger jet landed in Vietnam today.

United Airlines Flight 869 took off from San Francisco yesterday and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, at shortly after 10.00pm local time today (3pm).

It was first US commercial plane to touch down at Tan Son Nhat International Airport since the wartime capital of South Vietnam fell to the communists in 1975.

VIPs emerging from the blue and white plane were greeted by Vietnamese women wearing traditional white tunics or ao dais, and holding lotus blossoms and silk lanterns.