An April 29, 1975, picture taken by Dutch photographer Hugh Van Es shows evacuees scrambling to board a CIA helicopter from the top of a Saigon building

Hong Kong, May 15: Hugh Van Es, a Dutch photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975 — a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop — died this morning in Hong Kong, his wife said. He was 67.

Van Es died in Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, where he had lived for more than 35 years. He suffered a brain haemorrhage last week and never regained consciousness, his wife Annie said.

Slender, tough-talking and always ready with a quip, Van Es was considered by colleagues to be fearless and resourceful. He remained a towering figure after the war in journalism circles in Asia, including his adopted home in Hong Kong.

Van Es

Van Es arrived in Hong Kong as a freelancer in 1967, joined the South China Morning Post as chief photographer and got a chance the following year to go to Vietnam as a soundman for NBC News, which he took.

After a brief stint, he joined The Associated Press photo staff in Saigon from 1969-72 and then covered the last three years of the war from 1972-75 for United Press International. His shot of the helicopter escape from a Saigon rooftop on April 29, 1975, became a stunning metaphor for the desperate US withdrawal and its overall policy failure in Vietnam.