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Remains in 2006 trainer crash sent to landfill

There are no remains underneath the headstone at Arlington National Cemetery erected in memory of four people killed in the Jan. 10, 2006, crash of a Navy T-39 Sabreliner training jet.

That’s because the Air Force sent the cremated remains that were supposed to be buried there to a Virginia landfill, along with remains of seven Sept. 11 victims and those of hundreds of other service members.

Lt. Jason Manse, Ensign Elizabeth Bonn, Air Force 1st Lt. Jason Davis and retired Cmdr. David Roark died in the crash.

The news came in a report made public late last month by an independent Defense Department panel investigating the growing scandal stemming from management problems at the Dover Air Force Base, Del., military mortuary.

Elizabeth Bonn’s mother, Debbie Bonn, didn’t know of the mix-up until a Military Times reporter contacted her lawyer. Manse’s widow, Tammy, found out while watching an NBC News broadcast on the scandal.

“As a mom, my biggest thing was that I wanted our daughter back. And in the very beginning, when they brought her back from at Dover, what they told me was that I had all of her and she was intact,” Debbie Bonn said tearfully.

“We think that the military, it’s not clear whether it’s the Navy or Air Force or both, knew that they had a problem there and did not tell us everything that they knew. They knew more than they told us.”

Elizabeth Bonn, a 23-year-old from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was looking forward to receiving her wings and heading to an EA-6B Prowler squadron as a navigator. She also became engaged three days before the T-39 Sabreliner clipped trees and crashed. That flight — from Chattanooga, Tenn., back home to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla. — was supposed to be her final exam.

Jason Manse was 30. He ran track at Duke University, where an 800-meter race now bears his name. He was an instructor with Training Squadron 86 at Pensacola and was months away from leaving the Navy to start dental school. But he was more excited about becoming a dad; Tammy was 12 weeks pregnant when he was killed.

The families of Roark, a contractor, and Davis, another student, could not be reached for comment.

Part of far-reaching problems

The Air Force and Navy didn’t respond to questions about why the families were not informed. But the incident underscores the ongoing problems at Dover’s Port Mortuary, where the remains of hundreds of fallen service members have been lost or sent to landfills over the past several years. It’s unknown exactly how many people’s remains were mishandled, or if there are other families who still do not know that the remains of someone they love were dumped in a landfill.

Air Force officials never told the families about the landfill disposal. Instead, each received a letter that said the remains were “handled according to standard practices and procedures.”

In 2008, the Air Force ended the practice of sending cremated remains — most of which were not claimed by families — to landfills, and now hands them over to the Navy for burial at sea.

But the Defense Department panel headed by retired Army Gen. John Abizaid found that a “lack of clear command authority and supervision, lack of command and control technical oversight, unclear relationships among coordinating organizations [and a] lack of directive authority” created an environment of “gross mismanagement” at the Dover mortuary.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in a statement, said he had ordered steps to implement the Abizaid panel’s recommendations to reduce the risk of such problems. “My continuing promise to all the families of our fallen heroes is that every step will be taken to protect the honor and respect that their loved ones richly deserve,” he said.

The four were killed while taking a low-altitude route from Chattanooga back to Pensacola. Bonn’s lawyer said that the 68-year-old pilot had a heart condition that could have been a factor in the crash.

The families hoped they would be able to bury their loved ones, remember them, honor them, and heal. Manse was buried at Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola, and Bonn was buried in her hometown.

Debbie Bonn said she was initially told that her daughter’s body was intact and fully recovered. But around six months after the crash she received a call from the funeral director, who said that an urn containing additional remains had arrived.

“We get this urn, and it’s like wait a minute, you told me that you had all of her and she was intact,” Debbie Bonn said.

The other families were also informed that additional remains had been recovered. Because of the violence of the crash and the disruption caused by the investigation, it was impossible to individually identify them. The four families agreed that the leftover remains would be cremated together in a mass grave at Arlington.

But another Air Force misstep got in the way — the remains were lost. Senior officers told the families and promised to figure out what went wrong.

According to an 18th Air Force investigation completed Aug. 10, 2006, the crash victims’ remains were “cremated and disposed of as medical waste rather than being interred in group burial,” caused by “poor communication” between Dover Port Mortuary, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System and the Navy.

‘Nothing had gone right’

Family members weren’t told of the probe’s results, and very likely the investigation would have never been heard of again if it weren’t for the Abizaid panel’s report released Feb. 28. There, in the back of the report, in an appendix, is a five-line summary of the 2006 investigation.

While the recent investigation explains what happened to the ashes, any lingering questions the families have about the remains may go unanswered. The Air Force said they could not provide a copy of the 2006 report because it was destroyed in 2008 in accordance with standard policy.

Nor could the Air Force explain how Abizaid’s panel, formed last year, had access to a report that was destroyed three years earlier.

A month before the 18th Air Force probe was completed, an Air Force colonel stopped by Tammy Manse’s home in Pensacola to tell her the ashes of her husband and the others had gone missing. The colonel offered a personal apology and said the Dover mortuary was inundated with casualties and couldn’t keep pace.

Debbie Bonn remembers a similar conversation at her home in Wilkes-Barre. A colonel read a form letter that said “common remains” recovered from the crash were cremated at Dover. But he said they did an inventory earlier that month and found out that those ashes were missing.

“Though this whole thing, once they walked in the house the tears were coming down and I was silently crying. Actually at that point, I left.

“Nothing had gone right from the very start,” she said. “Nothing went right. And then I started laughing. And the colonel said to me, ‘I didn’t expect this reaction from you.’ My response was ‘Look at what happened with this incident. Nothing has gone right with the military from the get-go.’”