Scott Speicher Michael Scott Speicher ( July 12 , 1957 – date of death unknown ) was a United States Navy pilot who was shot down over Iraq during the Persian Gulf War . He was the first American combat casualty of the war . His remains were not recovered until August 2 , 2009 ; his fate had not been known until then . Early life , education and family . Michael Scott Speicher was born in Kansas City , Missouri on July 12 , 1957 . Scott and his sister went to Lakewood Elementary School and Eastgate Middle School before attending Winnetonka High School . When Scott was 15 , his family moved to Jacksonville , Florida , where he attended Nathan Bedford Forrest High School . After graduating from high school , he then attended Florida State University . Scott graduated from FSU in 1980 with a bachelor ' s degree in accounting and business management . While at Florida State University , Scott met Joanne , whom he eventually married . Scott ' s father had been a fighter pilot in World War II . Scott went on his first airplane flight when he was five years old . When he was a teenager Scott also served in the Civil Air Patrol . Scott joined the United States Navy and spent several years as a flight instructor on F / A - 18 Hornet aircraft . By the early 1990s , Scott had attained the rank of lieutenant commander and was stationed at Naval Air Station Cecil Field near Jacksonville , Florida . He was assigned to VFA - 81 ( nicknamed the " Sunliners " ) , aboard the aircraft carrier USS " Saratoga " . At the time of his deployment to the Iraq theater , Scott and Joanne had a 3 - year - old daughter and 1 - year - old son . Loss incident . LCDR Scott Speicher was flying an F / A - 18 Hornet fighter when he was shot down 100 miles west of Baghdad , on the night of January 17 , 1991 , the first night of Operation Desert Storm . His plane crashed in a remote , uninhabited wasteland known as Tulul ad Dulaym . He was the first combat casualty for American forces in the war . The U . S . Navy maintained in a 1997 document that Speicher was downed by a surface - to - air missile . However , an unclassified summary of a 2001 CIA report suggests that Speicher ' s aircraft was shot down by a missile fired from an Iraqi aircraft , most likely a MiG - 25 , flown by Lieutenant Zuhair Dawood , 84th squadron of the Iraqi Air Force . Speicher was at 28 , 000 feet and travelling at 0 . 92 Mach ( 540 Knots ) when the front of the aircraft suffered a catastrophic event . The impact from the R - 40 missile threw the aircraft laterally off its flight path between fifty and sixty degrees with a resulting 6 g minimum load . A pilot on the same mission stated : " I ' m telling you right now , don ' t believe what you ' re being told . . . " Status and investigations . 1990s . The day after the shoot - down , Speicher was placed on MIA status . On May 22 , 1991 , after the end of the Gulf War , Speicher ' s status was changed to Killed in Action / Body Not Recovered ( KIA / BNR ) . Navy Commander Buddy Harris , who was a friend and fellow naval aviator of Speicher ' s , became a strong advocate for searching for Speicher , often meeting with U . S . officials . In December 1993 , a military official from Qatar discovered the wreckage of a plane in the desert , which was subsequently identified as Speicher ' s aircraft . The canopy was a good distance from the rest of the aircraft , suggesting Speicher had tried to eject . In April 1994 , a U . S . satellite photographed apparent human - made symbols on the desert floor near the wreck ' s location , which might possibly be Speicher ' s E & E ( Escape and Evade ) sign , suggesting that Speicher might have survived the crash . A covert American operation to inspect the site was considered , but rejected by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili as too risky . In December 1995 , working through the International Committee of the Red Cross , investigators from the Navy and Army ' s Central Identification Laboratory went to Iraq and conducted an excavation of the crash site . Bedouin nomads gave investigators a flight uniform that was likely Speicher ' s , with his name supposedly cut out of it , but the investigators concluded it had been planted there . Other evidence led investigators to further conclude Speicher had likely ejected , and was not in the plane at the time it crashed . In September 1996 , the Secretary of the Navy in a new review reaffirmed the presumptive finding of death . Speicher was given a tomb at Arlington National Cemetery . In 1997 , a Defense Department document leaked to " The New York Times " showed that the Pentagon had not been forthcoming with information previously requested by U . S . Senator Rod Grams . Senator Grams publicly accused the Pentagon of misleading him , and joined with Senator Robert C . Smith in calling for an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee . The Speicher case was taken up by the National Alliance of Families , which had been quite active in the Vietnam War POW / MIA issue . Speculative theories were developed as to the circumstances of Speicher ' s shoot - down , and assuming he was still alive , why the U . S . military might not want to find him and why Iraq might not want to return him . 2000s . In January 2001 , the Secretary of the Navy changed Speicher ' s status to " missing in action " . This was the first time the Defense Department had ever made such a change . In conjunction with the change in classification , Speicher was promoted to Commander , in accordance with Navy practice for POWs held a long time . The 2001 CIA report stated that he may have survived by ejecting . Rumors from Iraq said that Speicher was captive , walked with a limp , and had facial scars . In July 2002 , Speicher was further promoted to Captain . Speicher ' s possible situation became a more high - profile issue in the build - up to war . In March 2002 , the " Washington Times " ran five successive front - page articles about it , National Review Online ran a long piece on it , and on September 12 , 2002 , President George W . Bush mentioned Speicher in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly as part of his case for war against Iraq . Senator Bill Nelson of Florida also took a strong interest in the case . Speicher ' s status was changed again to " missing / captured " on October 11 , 2002 , one day after the United States Congress authorized the use of military force in Iraq . Then - U . S . Secretary of the Navy Gordon R . England said , " While the information available to me now does not prove definitively that Cmdr . Speicher is alive and in Iraqi custody , I am personally convinced the Iraqis seized him sometime after his plane went down . Further , it is my firm belief that the government of Iraq knows what happened to Cmdr . Speicher . " Upon the 2003 invasion of Iraq in March 2003 , a major investigation on the ground began , that also further increased public attention to the matter . In April 2003 , Speicher ' s possible initials were discovered in a cell at Hakmiyah prison in Baghdad . Investigators did not think it was significant because a similar carving of " MJN " was found directly above the " MSS " scrawl . Subsequent tests on hair found in the cell ' s drain did not match Speicher ' s DNA . Senator Nelson went to Iraq to visit the prison personally . Speicher ' s name was also found on a document in Iraq , dated January 2003 , that had the names of prisoners being held in the country . Officials stated that the 90 - page document offered no evidence of whether Speicher was alive and might have been written either to provide an accounting of former Iraqi POWs or to confuse the U . S . military . Over time , as the U . S . occupation increasingly gained control over Anbar Governorate , it became apparent that Speicher was never captured . On January 5 , 2009 , the U . S . Navy held a review board to consider officially closing the case . The review board recommended that the Pentagon continue investigating what happened to Speicher . The recommendation went to Secretary of the Navy Donald C . Winter who had the final decision . Speicher ' s family believed and was worried that would change the status of Commander Speicher to KIA and declared they would oppose such action . On March 10 , 2009 , the Secretary of the Navy declared that Commander Speicher ' s status was changed from " Missing / Captured " back to " Missing - in - Action . " Discovery and positive identification . On August 2 , 2009 , the Navy reported that Speicher ' s remains were found in Iraq by United States Marines from 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines belonging to Multi National Force - West ' s Task Force Military Police and Marines from Marine Wing Support Squadron 271 belonging to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing . His jawbone was used to identify him after study at the Charles C . Carson Center for Mortuary Affairs at Dover Air Force Base . ) According to local civilians , Speicher was buried by Bedouins after his plane was shot down . The evidence proved that Speicher did not survive the crash . Senator Nelson attributed the delayed finding to the culture of the locality : " These Bedouins roam around in the desert , they don ' t stay in one place , and it just took this time to find the specific site . " Speicher ' s family expressed gratitude that the Defense Department had stayed with the case and that closure was now available . " The Christian Science Monitor " termed the case " a veritable saga punctuated with hope , uncertainty , and despair for the past 18 years . " Legacy . The Florida State University named its tennis center after Speicher , an avid player . The $ 1 . 2 million Scott Speicher Tennis Complex was completed in 2003 . A memorial statue and plaque was erected on Naval Air Station Cecil Field dedicated to him . The Naval Air Station has since been deactivated . A memorial head marker dedicated to Speicher stands in Section H of Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia . The memorial markers are erected when there are no identifiable remains for an individual whose death has been substantiated . Cemetery policy states that if remains are later recovered , the head marker will be interred with the coffin . In effort to honor Speicher , a former Iraqi air base in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit was renamed COB Speicher . A US Navy F / A - 18 " Hornet " on display outside the Naval Aviation Schools Command at NAS Pensacola , Florida , was dedicated to the Speicher family in May 2009 . The aircraft was painted in the markings of United States Navy squadron VFA - 81 " Sunliners " and USS Saratoga , which was Speicher ' s squadron and ship when he was shot down . A front - page story in the August 7 , 2009 issue of the Naval Air Station Pensacola newspaper " Gosport " describes how Speicher ' s remains were discovered and identified after 18 years . The story has a photo of Speicher ' s children talking with a member of VFA - 81 next to the plane . On August 13 , 2009 , the remains of Commander Michael Scott Speicher arrived in Florida 18 years after having been shot down in the Persian Gulf War . The plane containing his remains touched down at Jacksonville Naval Air Station at 3 p . m . Thousands of friends and family gathered for his burial . Commander Speicher ' s final resting place is at the Jacksonville Memory Garden . On September 7 , 2009 , Commander Speicher was honored at the start of the Florida State University football game against the University of Miami at Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium when a flight of F / A - 18s performed the missing man formation .