Air Force Team Discovers Body Parts in Jet Wreckage

The Air Force said Friday it found body parts among the wreckage of an A-10 warplane, indicating that the pilot was in the cockpit when it crashed into a mountain.

“What we found was fragmentary human remains,” Maj. Gen. Nels Running said. “We are not positive whose human remains they are.”

A military lab will conduct DNA and other tests to determine whether the remains are those Capt. Craig Button, Running said.

The announcement came after a three-week search for Button’s plane after he veered away during a training run April 2.

The Air Force took advantage of improved weather at the site Friday and lowered three special operations sergeants by cable from a helicopter to recover the remains. The procedure took about an hour.

Four 500-pound bombs on the aircraft have not been seen, Running said. After the snow melts, searchers will be sent to “locate and neutralize” them, he said.

Moments before boarding a TH-53 helicopter, Tech Sgt. Ishmael Antonio disclosed that aerial photos had revealed what appeared to be Button’s “life support equipment” in a gorge on Gold Dust Peak.

Officials said that was a good indicator that Button had gone down with the plane when it crashed. His mysterious departure from a formation of A-10s during a training mission over Arizona raised questions about his intentions and condition during the flight.

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Button’s disappearance had sparked rumors of varied conspiracy theories as to why a trusted, well-liked pilot would have taken the action that he did.

Air Force officials have gone to extreme lengths in their efforts to solve the mystery behind the pilot’s disappearance.

Hundreds of flights were flown in the search for the wreckage. Officials pored over radar charts from four states to determine where the aircraft veered off course and to establish whether Button had been in control of it.