WASHINGTON — Officials at an Air Force mortuary pushed to have some cremated remains from victims of the Sept. 11 attacks buried at sea, but they were overruled by higher-ups in the military who insisted on a plan that resulted in the ashes being dumped in a landfill, according to a mortuary official.
William Zwicharowski, a civilian who served as interim director of the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in 2002, told The Washington Post he was still pained by the outcome and wished he had resisted the order more strenuously.
“We fought the fight, but I had zero clout back then,” he said. “The decision was made at a higher level. Had I had the experience I have now, 10 years later, I would have stood up and probably just not done it.”
A Defense Department review of operations at the Dover mortuary revealed last week that some unidentified human remains from the Pentagon plane crash were incinerated and dumped in a landfill. The disclosure stunned senior military leaders, lawmakers and victims’ families, who had assumed all unidentified remains from the attack were cremated and buried together at Arlington National Cemetery.
Zwicharowski, who still works at Dover, is one of four whistle-blowers there who have reported other problems at the mortuary.
