Sunday, August 2, 2009
It looks like he went down with his aircraft in Gulf War I after all. The Washington Post reports that Navy Pilot Scott Speicher's remains have been identified:
...The Pentagon said the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology on Saturday had positively identified the remains of Navy Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his fighter jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 war.
The top Navy officer said the discovery illustrates the military's commitment to bring its troops home...
...The Pentagon initially declared Speicher killed, but uncertainty - and the lack of remains - led officials over the years to change his status a number of times to "missing in action" and later "missing-captured." The family Speicher left behind, from outside Jacksonville, Fla. - continued to press for the military to do more to resolve the case...
...Officials said Sunday that they got new information last month from an Iraqi citizen, prompting Marines stationed in the western province of Anbar to visit a location in the desert which was believed to be the crash site of Speicher's FA-18 Hornet.
The Iraqi said he knew of two other Iraqis who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert, the Pentagon said.
"One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried," the Defense Department said in a statement.
The military recovered bones and multiple skeletal fragments and Speicher was positively identified by matching a jawbone and dental records, said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp.
He said the Iraqis told investigators that the Bedouins had buried Speicher. It was unclear whether the military had information on how soon Speicher died after the crash...
DoD story here. Sad to think about what the family's been going through all these years with stories of supposed sightings and 'evidence' that he was alive..
