MIA Missions

We hosted three separate sessions with a growing number of local high school students, introducing them to the multidisciplinary work of Project Recover, military and civilian aircraft along with the people responsible for the aircraft on the ground and in the air, and a candid conversation about the character our organization seeks in the valuable members who we select to be a part of our team.

Exposing high school students across America to the many industries and career possibilities associated with our work, introducing them to our military’s pilots and aircraft crews, and introducing them to our mission is very important to Project Recover. Perhaps these students already have a military connection or this might be their first introduction to the U.S. military. Either way we hope that our growing Skyward Bound program might ignite new interests or increase understanding of the importance of individual character traits and how that relates to being a part of a valuable and effective team.

We conducted a thorough and successful seven-week recovery effort on the site and are currently awaiting any news of additional identifications from the site (which can take 1-2 years).

With seventeen underwater recovery team members and another nine land team members executing the parallel land documentation/search mission, this was the largest Project Recover team deployment yet, testing, with success, our ability to conduct concurrent missions to increase the efficiency and impact of our efforts.

This mission was in partnership with DPAA. While much of the aircraft had been documented over the years, the majority of the fuselage, to include the cockpit, remains missing in the dense jungle.

It might seem odd that so much of the aircraft remains missing. However, the mangrove is so thick and dense, visibility can be limited to a meter and the most modern GPS technology often does not work or only provides accuracy down to a range of dozens of meters. Project Recover planned to sweep the jungle with ten members over a three-week period. The team covered a significant amount of territory on this mission. After the first week in the jungle, the team interviewed a witness who had pointed them to this portion of jungle in the past. This witness learned from his father about the crash site as a youth and had spent a great deal of time in the jungle. His testimony expanded our search area by more than 100 percent.

Despite covering thousands of square meters of mangrove jungle, the team did not locate the cockpit. Several previously unlocated pieces of aircraft were recorded and potential unexploded ordinance was documented, marked, and reported. Project Recover remains committed to documenting the remainder of this crash site and locating the missing Marine associated with the site.