MIA Missions

The Project Recover team consisted of:

• Derek Abbey, PhD, and Team Leader
• Patrick Scannon, MD, PhD Co-Team Leader (Terrestrial)
• Svenja Weise, PhD, Lead Underwater Archaeologist
• Jolie Liston, PhD, Lead Terrestrial Archaeologist
• Nick Zaborski, Lead Recovery Leader (Legion Underseas Services)
• Brock Stevens, US Navy Diver and Photographer (first field mission)
• Josh Evens, Terrestrial and Technical Support (first field Mission)
• Austin Adam, Guest, Underwater and Terrestrial Support

Prior to arrival, Jolie Liston kindly advanced the necessary permitting processes at the State and National levels, also gaining landowner permission as appropriate.

1. The Underwater Investigation and Survey of an MIA-associated F4U Corsair:

In 1945, a Marine fighter pilot was shot down during a bombing mission in the vicinity of Malakal Harbor, an area heavily defended by Japanese antiaircraft units. A Project Recover team (BentProp) originally located the site in 2003 (see PMAN-V and P-MAN VI Reports) and was preliminarily investigated by DPAA (then JPAC) in 2004 without success in locating human remains.

However, based on improved methodologies over the past twenty years, Project Recover recently reviewed and decided to reinvestigate the site. The crash site debris field is relatively compact, covering an area of approximately 30mx40m. Much, but not all, of this Corsair debris can be readily accounted for on the harbor surface. Because the crash site is located at depths between 30-50 feet, a specific question was whether some of the unaccounted-for aircraft debris, e.g., the cockpit area, might have embedded deeper into the sea floor than initially thought.

Our survey team spent four days on-site. The first day was used to acquaint the team with the site as it exists today, comparing the current debris field with the originally filed P-MAN-V/VI and JPAC findings (DPAA kindly supplied a copy of the JPAC report). The initial assessment was that the debris field is basically unchanged, even after more than twenty years.

Over the next three days, the underwater team created a detailed map of surface debris, with particular attention to zones that might have a greater probability for locating human remains. Although no human remains were located on the surface (none were expected), it does appear from close surface inspection that certain areas appear to have debris embedded deeper than observed in 2003/4. Also, some of these zones are likely areas of interest for excavation, should the go-ahead for recovery occur. The archaeology assessment and conclusions are due later this month.

2. Terrestrial Evaluation of the Role of Environmental DNA (eDNA) and Other Technologies as Aids in Locating Unmarked MIA-related Grave Sites:

Although great technological progress has been made for underwater searches, terrestrial searches, by and large, still depend on human teams walking areas of interest using their eyes and legs. This can work when looking for aviation crash sites, for example. Still, increasingly, Project Recover is finding, in both the Pacific and European theaters, suspected MIA-related unmarked graves separate from any wartime structures. These sites are typically, but not always, human-sized depressions in the ground and may have one of several explanations: e.g., an empty or debris-containing pit without human remains, a previously excavated grave, or an active grave site. In addition, we are locating areas of interest, but do not know precisely where the grave might be located within that area.

Finding these areas of interest raises issues concerning what to do next. Host countries have a variety of cultures and bureaucracies that, depending on many variables, do not permit immediate digging of test trenches or excavations. If permission is to be granted at all, supportive evidence is essential.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is a technology for analyzing soil, water, or other environmental sources to look for the presence of source DNA of interest, e.g., bacterial, fungal, plant, mammalian, and more specifically, human. DNA and its fragments can be very stable, lasting millions of years. A disadvantage of this technology to date has been that it is intensively laboratory-based, requiring field teams, particularly interested in locating human remains, to collect soil or other samples, prepare them for shipping with appropriate USDA permits, and typically wait 3-4 months for results. This usually requires the team to return home and return to the field for additional collections if the results are inconclusive.

Another technology of interest is using unmanned aerial vehicles with differing sensors, such as multispectral imaging, thermal imaging, and LIDAR. A limitation here is that flying such drones under the canopy has had limited success because of the potential for drone collisions.

Project Recover is assessing these and other technologies to extend terrestrial searches beyond “boots-on-the-ground”. We decided to take two archaeologists into the jungle in Ngatpang state to a possible MIA-related site to assess how we might use new technologies in this austere setting. We discussed aspects such as logistics, setting up equipment, limitations of weather, collection steps (for eDNA), and other potential issues. The conclusion was that some of the more recent advances in eDNA technology and unmanned aerial systems will permit collecting and processing samples, which might accelerate time-to-recovery operations. As a result of this field mission, Project Recover plans to begin implementing these new technologies in coordination with scientists from the University of Georgia in the near future.

This was a short but very successful mission. The Project Recover team was able to survey the underwater crash site and complete our technical feasibility studies. The underwater crash site analysis is ongoing.