As most of us have heard by now, on 10/20 the frozen body of a WWII-era airman was reported found in the Sierra Navada Mts. (FYI, there was a thread in MPSIMS about it.)
News reports have described the body as being intact, well-preserved and fully clothed. It was even still wearing a parachute.
Identifying this guy should be a slam dunk. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. Yet officials maintain that an ID may take weeks – even months – to complete! That’s just nuts. Bureaucrats are just covering their asses, I say! They’ll melt this guy out a bit, look in his wallet, match the name to his dental records and announce a positive ID within a week, I say.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Is there really some valid reason they might need all that time to figure out who this guy is?
They need to go back and re-falsify his death certificate, so instead of “Drowned in Lake Tahoe on leave” it says “Crashed Top Secret Alien Spacecraft Into Mountain”.
Probably allowing thenselves time to find and notify NOK and to make sure of the circumstances of the incident before facing probing questions from the press.
A wallet, dog tags, etc. merely provide data useful for determing how to proceed in positively id-ing a body. Note that even with a modern death, you still need more proof. E.g., having a relative id the body.
So they will have a Real Good Idea who it is in no time. The issue is then converting that to proof.
Dental records? From the 1940s? You’ve gotta be kidding me.
Note also that the majority of Army personel records from that era were destoyed in a fire.
So the military might have little to no proof to go on within their own archives.
Worst case scenerio: they’ll have to track down a blood relative and do DNA testing. Which, contrary to CSI, isn’t done in a hour.
As mentioned by ftg, this is one of the reasons I don’t like CSI.
If they want an iron-clad ID; one not based on clothing, dog tags, wallet contents, they need to have a biological ID. So they need either DNA, or dental records. Since I’m assuming this guy has no DNA on record, and I don’t know if he has any children, they’ll probably need to do a mitochondrial comparison.
Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) testing is not trivial by any stretch of the imagination. In mDNA testing the genetic matierial tested is taken from the cell mitochondria, and since all mothers have the same mitochondrial DNA as their daughters, the deceased’s DNA can be compared to that of a maternal relative.
The testing is quite lengthy, and in addition, a relative must be found, and also tested.
I think you are overestimating the ease of getting a visual identification. What are they going to do, find a relative and ask, “Is this what your uncle looked like 70 years ago?”
If anything, I’d say that the military was going to start looking through records of flights over that area, and then search for people who are unaccounted for from those flights. DNA testing to identify someone is only feasible if you’ve only got 2-3 potentital suspects.
In 1986, in the pre-DNA era, there appeared in the New Yorker magazine a serialized non-fiction story titled A Missing Plane by Susan Sheehan. One of the most fascinating pieces I’ve ever read. I even kept it, it was so interesting.
The piece retold the saga of how a downed American WWII aircraft had been improbably discovered a few years prior in the jungles of New Guinea, how the scant remains of the crew were systematically recovered, how they were painstakingly identified, how their NOK were notified, and how the remains were finally interred.
The most interesting part was how the medical examiner figured out what bits belonged to who – and we’re talking about aproximately a dozen crew members whose minimal remains were well-scattered at the site. One of the things he used, I remember, were the airmen’s dental records.
Maybe the particular documents were, in fact, destroyed in a fire, making the dental records route a dead end here. But please don’t suggest that a military dental record match from the 1940s is out of the question.
Actually, as far back as 1914-18 War, every Canadian soldier had a dental chart, with all missing teeth, fillings, bridges, etc. marked in his file. I’ve seen about 30 full personnel files, and each has quite a full dental/medical section.
This, I suspect, is more to cover the Army’s butt in years to come–Private Canuck can’t claim in, say, 1932 that he lost his teeth in the mess hall in a biscuit, and claim a larger pension. “Looky here, son, you had them in 1918!”
Bodies were being identified in the 1920s in British courtrooms by dental charts.
Since Airman Iceman was frozen pretty quickly (under a layer of snow, which then later turned to ice), I’d say there’s a good chance they’ll get tissue that could provide DNA (not that I’m in any way well-informed about such stuff).
The USAAF would have a manifest of who was on the A/C when it went down, and likely held a Board of Enquiry into the crash (or disappearance) of the plane. So there would be a list of “likely” names from which to try and find a living relative for DNA comparison.
I’m thinking that the time frame may be mostly or entirely to find next of kin. You can’t do that by computer when you’re dealing with people who were already adults in the 40s. You have to play detective and do a lot of phone and fax work with slow-moving, low-tech entities like halls of records.
Please keep in mind that my original post was solely addressing the OP’s belief that this should be a quick task. I in no way believe that using dental records is impossible, just not quick.
Actually, you are correct. They have to follow the SOP, as they do with all identification procedures. Would you prefer they cut corners? Of course, if the degree of certainty of the identification is reached in less time than originally planned, I’m sure we will know just that much sooner.
<hijack=slight>
Remember a few years back when that Forest Service contract air tanker folded its wings in midflight and crashed? It wasn’t long before everyone knew who the three firefighters were that died, long before the government officially released the names.
Why so long?
I know the public affairs officer who witnessed that crash. She had to follow procedures all the way through before she was allowed to issue the press release with the actual details. The media only checked the manifest. The government had to certify beyond any doubt as to who actually died. The next of kin not only had to be notified, but any remains found had to be DNA tested to confirm who was actually aboard the aircraft.
</hijack>
Well on the other hand here is a case where crewmember remains were recovered in 1949 and not identified until 1984.
[Hijack] The survivor listed in the link, Jose Holguin, was my high school Spanish teacher. he won the Silver Star for his actions.[/hijack]
One more thing, the news report I saw the other night said X-rays had found no trace of dog tags on the body.
They are probably just being cautious so as not to generate unrealistic expectations on the part of relatives. The body was thought to be that of a crew member of an AT-7 training-flight crash. The wreckage was found some time ago (in the 1950’s?) but no bodies.
There was a story on Countdown tonight (25 Oct) about the 3 surviving sisters of one of the crew. Since all of the crew members are known, surviving next of kin can be found for possible DNA comparison and the time might be shorter than that announced.
But they do want to be sure before they announce a determination.
While I understand that DNA is usually a definitive test, I’m a little creeped out by the emerging meme that it’s the ONLY way to make a positive ID. I mean, c’mon, bodies were identified before we had such technology!
I can see it taking a couple weeks to track down records, arrange for interviews with relatives, etc. in the event you can’t figure it out from dogtags and there being only a limited number of people who have been in the area of the crash.
I’m not sure why you equate “no DNA on record” with a need to do mitochondrial DNA (usually called mtDNA) testing. The only alternative is nuclear DNA testing, and I don’t see why one would be more appropriate when there is DNA “on record” and the other when you would need to use a relative. Also, I don’t know why you say that mtDNA testing is harder than nuclear DNA testing. If your point is that tracking down a relative may take time, fine, but that has nothing to do with mitochondrial DNA in particular. Testing the relative is no harder than testing the body.