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High Honor: The Missing Man Formation

The casket is supposed to go into ground at 1130 hours. The aviators want 30 minutes of loiter time in the Washington area, in case things go more quickly, plus they want 30 minutes for the commute, 45 minutes to saddle up, and 75 minutes to brief the mission. That's four hours, so they start the day at 0830.

Ben: "We brief exactly where to hold, where to fly over, what information to expect from the man on the ground, and what to do in various contingencies. For instance, the flight is always briefed as a four-plane, with the third guy pulling up, but we [also] brief a three-plane flyover with a hole" in it.

A naval aviator in Washington was assigned as their ground controller. He went out to Arlington yesterday with a GPS, to check the gravesite and record its latitude and longitude. (On a good day, the satellites of the Global Positioning System can pinpoint your aircraft, boat, or casket within 50 feet.) He emailed this information to VFA-81, whose skipper gave it to Ben's flight, whose leader gave it to Ben. As junior officer, it's his job to load the coordinates into each Hornet's memory unit. At 0945, the aviators "walk"--which is to say, dress for flight.

Ben: "G-suit, parachute harness, and survival vest go on in a couple of minutes. Wipe any fingerprints or marks off your helmet's visor, wipe out your oxygen mask with a little rubbing alcohol, and you're ready to go." Or nearly so: each Hornet has an Aircraft Discrepancy Book, listing any maintenance problems or gripes from pilots who've flown it recently. Each man reads the ADB for his A/F-18C du jour and signs the book before going out to the flight line. "Preflight takes five minutes or less. Strapping in and starting up takes about ten minutes. Most of that time is spent waiting for the INS to align itself."

The Inertial Navigation System measures the Hornet's acceleration and its movement in yaw, pitch, and roll; if it knows where it began the day, it can tell you at any given moment thereafter what spot you've reached on the earth's surface. While the INS sorts itself out, the pilots check their radar, radio, flight controls, and navigation systems, while the "ground troops" look for problems outside the cockpit. Sure enough, one Hornet has a mechanical difficulty, and it proves intractable. Plan B is now in effect: VFA-81 will fly the formation with just three aircraft.

Here's the thing: VFA-81 is just one fighter squadron of many, and it spends much of its time at sea aboard the USS George Washington. Nevertheless, Ben and his mates drew three of these assignments last year, flying the Missing Man formation for Admiral Donald Engen, director of the National Air & Space Museum; for the repatriated remains of a PBY Catalina crew from World War II; and for Senator John Chaffee of Rhode Island.

So far, so good. An admiral or general always rates full honors, as does anyone connected with military aviation. And the senator came under a guideline that authorizes flyovers for "dignitaries of the armed forces and the federal government."

More mysteriously, four Air Force F-16 Falcons made a flyby at a Texas A&M football game last November, at half-time ceremonies to mourn the "Aggies" killed while building a pre-game bonfire. (The stack of logs collapsed on them, which might lead a cynic to suggest that a Darwin Award would have been more appropriate than a Missing Man formation, with its suggestion of a hero's soul going up to God.) It seems that no people love football more than Texans. Thousands of requests flooded the Pentagon and other government offices, asking for the tribute. Four A&M graduates--Major Jeffrey Smiley '80, Major Bruce Cox '86, Capt. David Efferson '90, and Capt. Christopher Yancy '88--were reserve pilots with the 457th Fighter Squadron at Carswell Field, Forth Worth; they were eager to go, if somebody bent the rules. Texas Senator Phil Gramm (who once taught at Texas A&M, and who sits on the Senate Budget Committee) heard about the stand-off and rang up the Pentagon.

Gramm: "Would I receive a fly-by in my honor at the time of my death?"

Air Force officer: "Yes, sir!"

Gramm: "Well, I want to use mine for those 12 kids."

I ran this story past Larry Neale, the senator's deputy chief of staff, and he agreed that it was "essentially accurate." So I asked the Air Force about the Aggie flyover and another memorializing the students shot at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. How did these youngsters get to be dignitaries? "The events in question," replied Major General William S. Hinton, Jr., "were deemed public affairs events and therefore did not fall within the provisions of AFI 11-209."

In short, the military ignores its guidelines if the grief level is high enough.

And guidelines don't apply to civilian aircraft. "Peanuts" creator Charles Schultz got a fly-by at his funeral, by what the newspapers called "British World War Two-era fighter planes in a missing man formation, the middle plane trailing smoke from its wings." John F. Kennedy, Jr. got a salute from some German-built Extra 300s at the Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Firemen killed in a warehouse blaze were honored by Massachusetts State Police helicopters, and the Border Patrol similarly honored an agent shot in line of duty.

An Illinois aerobatic team lost a member in a crash, and saluted him with a Missing Man fly-by at the crash site and over his home. An Oklahoma businessman got instructors at the Spartan School of Aeronautics to memorialize his son's death. Nineteen sky-divers in the Chicago area did a mass free-fall with one vacant spot in honor of a young woman killed in a parachuting accident. (She'd bumped somebody on the way down.) And out in California, where all things are possible, Memorial Flights will fly the Missing Man for you, on no other criterion than your ability to pay: $1,800 for four T-6 Texan trainers, $3,600 for three World War II fighter planes, within 50 miles of Chino.

In short, the Missing Man formation has become an American tradition--cliche, if you prefer. ("1300: Flag Pole Dedication. 1320: Missing Man Formation.... 1415: Otto the Clown Helicopter Rides.") And like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and "okay," it has spread around the world. When World War II ace Colonel Lauri Pekuri died last year, Finnish air force F-18s flew the Missing Man at his funeral. Royal Air Force Jaguars flew it for Jordan's King Hussein. Belgian air force Marchetti SM260s flew it for three Canadian airmen, shot down during World War II, when their remains were found 57 years later.