Flight 93 and Pentagon Passengers on 9/11 End Up in Landfill

The policy began shortly after 9/11. Partial remains of some 9/11 victims were sent to a landfill after they could not be identified. The victims were among those killed at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa. On Tuesday, a new Defense Department review of the mortuary operations at Dover revealed that “several portions of remains” recovered from the Sept. 11 attacks at the Pentagon and at Shanksville also ended up in a landfill. The review, led by retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, did not quantify how many human remains from Sept. 11 were disposed of in this manner. It said the remains “could not be tested or identified,” apparently because they were too small or charred to allow for DNA analysis.

John Philip Abizaid is a retired General in the United States Army and former Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), overseeing American military operations in a 27-country region, from the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia, covering much of the Middle East. Abizaid, a Lebanese American, was born in northern California. He was raised Catholic. He learned Arabic in the military.