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## News Release

# Airman Lost In 1942 Crash Is Identified (Mustonen)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that theremains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942, have been identified and will soon bereturned to his family for burial.

He is Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen, 22, of Brainard, Minn. The family has not set a date forhis burial.

Mustonen was one of four men aboard a routine navigation training flight which departedMather Field, Calif., on November 18, 1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours offuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was initiated. It was suspended about a monthlater with no results.

In 1947, several hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range discovered theaircraft wreckage. Human remains of three of the crew found at the site were buried in the GoldenGate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif.

Several other hikers on Mendel Glacier (adjacent to Darwin Glacier) discovered frozen humanremains, circumstantial evidence and personal effects in October 2005. Park rangers from Sequoia andKings Canyon National Parks and a forensic anthropologist from the Joint POW/MIA AccountingCommand (JPAC) recovered the remains, which were later shipped to the JPAC laboratory in Hawaii.

Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) also usedmitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools in the process. U.S. Army Casualty and Mortuaryofficials located and briefed representatives of the families of all four crewmen.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

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