There are people out there who, without lawful
authority and without archeological or anthropo-
logical forensics training (all of which JPAC
brings to us), find wrecks and scour them for
artifacts, including bones and fragments. One
of those mentioned was caught at the border
in Burma with a box of bones, which were
removed from his custody by the Burmese.
Lisa and other members have worked many
long and hard hours to achieve JPAC's
involvement in the recovery of the remains
of our loved ones. JPAC is the only lawfully
authorized authority that can do so and give
recognition to and identify the remains found,
if any. At a recovery site, they carefully stake
out a search pattern, complete the search,
and photograph and recovery remains in situ,
which is crucial for lawful identification and
verification. An e-mail was sent out intending
to forewarn our group that there are a number
of people out there, unrelated to JPAC, without
lawful authority, who are willing to conduct
haphazard and untrustworthy attempts at
recovery. If that is done, it raises a serious
question of the reliability, verifiability, and
identification of anything recovered. Walter
Dutton took part in a few crash investigations
in the jungle in Vietnam during the Vietnam war.
Even then, and his group was entirely military,
they worked with graves registration people
(the same offices with whom Captain Madrid
works) to ensure recovery was done carefully
under the circumstances so that identification
of remains could be authenticated. They had to
sign sworn statements, draft maps, etc.
JPAC and lawful authorities are the people we
want conducting our search and recovery.
Thus we are being careful to keep our
information regarding the crash site as closely
held as possible so that wreck hunters don't
ruin our chances of a successful recovery
and return of any remains found.
