VP-5

from http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm (url will change later)

Veterans in need
Veterans Day is tomorrow — no better time to call attention to the
remains of up to five U.S. Navy airmen still sitting above ground in
Greenland, where they perished in 1962. "They are not under ice, but visible
every summer when the snow melts," reveals retired naval officer George G.
Fabik of Allentown, Pa., who says that, despite letters to Congress from
surviving family members over the years, "nothing has ever been done to
bring them home." "They were last seen in 2001," Mr. Fabik says of the
bodies. "This has to be considered a national disgrace. They did die in the
service of their country." Yesterday, Inside the Beltway spoke with Bob
Pettway, a retired Secret Service agent, who from his Tennessee home has
taken up the cause to bring the remains home for a proper burial.
Here's what Mr. Pettway knows:
On Jan. 12, 1962, a dozen naval crewmen departed Keflavik, Iceland,
aboard a P-2V-5 Neptune aircraft designated LA-9 of Patrol Squadron 5. The
crewmen were flying a routine 8½-hour ice patrol when the plane suddenly
vanished. A search and rescue was launched in a blizzard, but after seven
days, the plane was presumed lost at sea and the men were declared dead by
the Navy. On Aug. 8, 1966, four British geologists from Oxford University
were traversing the Kronborg Glacier on Greenland's east coast and happened
upon the crash site — the plane's fuselage still intact. They took
identification from several of the bodies and promptly reported the crash
site to U.S. officials. A Navy recovery team arrived at the site Sept. 20,
just after a snowfall measuring between 3 and 4 feet. They spent 24 hours
digging through the deep snow to recover what remains they could, then
detonated explosives to destroy the aircraft and any classified materials
and equipment. The team recovered seven identifiable bodies and partial
remains of possibly three more crewmen, which could not be identified.
Remains of two crewmen were not recovered. The seven were buried either at
Arlington National Cemetery or in family plots, while a separate Arlington
ceremony was held in October 1966 for the unidentified remains — buried in a
common grave bearing the names of the remaining five. In August 1995,
exploring geologists again came upon the LA-9 crash site, where they
photographed the remains of at least two crewmen. But the Navy took the
position that because the plane crashed during peacetime, it did not fall
within the scope of "full recovery" rules approved by Congress during
wartime. "Hence, there is no funding for recovery of remains lost during
peacetime in a mishap," Mr. Pettway says. Finally, this past February, the
Naval Casualty Division of the Bureau of Navy Personnel recommended to the
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) that funding be allocated for
a "complete recovery" of the LA-9 crew. The families still await the CNO's
decision.

more info at http://www.vpnavy.com/vp5mem_newsletter.html