9/11 remains ended up in landfill
Retired Gen. John Abizaid, Defense Health Board subcommittee chair conducts a briefing about the Dover Port Mortuary Independent Review Subcommittee Report at the Pentagon February 28, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. In the report it is noted that small portions of unidentified human remains recovered from the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and from the impact site of United flight 93 which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were incinerated and subsequently dumped in a landfill, the Defense Department acknowledged Tuesday.
A report released by the Pentagon on Tuesday revealed that remains from unidentified 9/11 victims ended up in a landfill, according to the Associated Press.
The remains were from the site where a hijacked airplane hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, a crash which claimed 184 lives, as well as the plane crash in Shanksville, Pa., which claimed 40 lives.
The report, released by an independent review subcommittee of the Defense Health Board, said that human remains which could not be tested or identified were cremated before they were sent to the Dover Air Force Base mortuary, according to Politico.
The report said, “The assumption on the part of DPM [Dover Port Mortuary] was that after final incineration nothing remained,” however, closer examination revealed “some residual material following incineration,” that was being disposed in a landfill, reported Politico.
The Washington Post noted that the Dover mortuary’s practice of disposing of incinerated portions of remains from troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in a Virginia landfill had been going on for years. The Post said, “The practice involved unidentified or unclaimed body parts; it was not made known to troops’ family members.”
The review was led by retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, who said he could not quantify how many remains were disposed in a landfill. He reiterated that his panel was overseeing current operations at the Dover mortuary.
The mortuary's policies have changed since 2008, and it now buries unclaimed or unidentified remains at sea, The Post stated.
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