Season 3, Episode 24 (March 18, 1975). Written by Everett Greenbaum & Jim Fritzell; Directed by Larry Gelbart.
This episode shocked America and changed television forever. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson) finally receives his discharge and flies home to Bloomington, Illinois. But in the final scene, Radar enters the operating room with devastating news: "Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. There were no survivors" [1].
This was the first time in American television history that a main character departing a comedy series was killed off in such a tragic way. The episode prompted over 1,000 letters to CBS and 20th Century Fox.
Series creator Larry Gelbart explained the decision: "We decided that we would have him die on his way home, because while we spoke of death many times on the series... we thought we'd have his death mean something." The timing was particularly resonant—the Vietnam War had ended just months earlier. Gelbart noted that the same week the episode aired, a real cargo plane filled with Vietnamese children being adopted crashed on a runway in Saigon, killing dozens. The writers hoped this would show they weren't "manufacturing tragedy for exploitative reasons."
McLean Stevenson left the show because he felt typecast and wanted to pursue other opportunities. He had two years left on his contract but wanted out early.
This episode also marked the final appearance of Wayne Rogers (Trapper John), who left the series after Season 3.