Mon, Mar 13, 2006
Airman Lost In 1942 Crash Is Identified
The Department of
Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that
the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942,
have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for
burial.
He is Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen, 22, of Brainerd, Minn. The
family has not set a date for his burial.
Mustonen was one of four men aboard a routine navigation
training flight that departed Mather Field, Calif., on Nov. 18,
1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of
fuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was
initiated. It was suspended about a month later with no
results.
In 1947, several hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada
mountain range discovered the aircraft wreckage. Human remains of
three of the crew found at the site were buried in the Golden Gate
National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif.
Several other hikers on Mendel Glacier, which is adjacent to
Darwin Glacier, discovered frozen human remains, circumstantial
evidence and personal effects in October 2005. Park rangers from
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and a forensic
anthropologist from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC)
recovered the remains, which were later shipped to the JPAC
laboratory in Hawaii.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools
in the process. U.S. Army casualty and mortuary officials located
and briefed representatives of the families of all four
crewmen.
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