The DOD POW/Missing Personnel Office has identified the remains of an airman missing since the crash of an AT-7 aircraft during a Nov. 18, 1942 navigator training flight out of Mather Field, Calif. Aviation Cadet Ernest G. Munn of St Clairsville, Ohio, was one of four men aboard the AT-7. When it failed to return to base after it would have exhausted its five hours of fuel, officials launched a search that continued for about a month with no results. In 1947, hikers in the Sierra Nevada mountain range found AT-7 wreckage on Darwin Glacier. In 2005, other hikers discovered frozen human remains, circumstantial evidence, and personal effects that subsequently the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command identified as Cadet Leo Mustonen of the ill-fated flight. Other hikers in 2007 found more remains near the 2005 site that JPAC researchers identified as belonging to Munn.
The Air Force has finished modifying and testing the new VC-25B Bridge aircraft that will serve as a temporary Air Force One, the service announced May 1. All that’s left now is to finish painting the jet before it starts flying this summer.