MUSKEGON, Mich. — There are families across the country hoping that recently proposed legislation will bring recognition to their loved ones who died while serving our country.
For decades now, if a military member died in a non-combat plane crash, they weren’t afforded the same treatment as those killed in action.
But these families, including one I met here in West Michigan, hope this new bill will bring new honor.
This act is called the Flight 293 Remembrance Act. Among other things, it would call for a publicly accessible database documenting all non-combat military plane crashes, ensuring the safe keeping of the names, ranks, and service details of the service men and women who have died.
One woman, Tonja Anderson-Dell, kick-started much of this missing not in action search, leaving a West Michigan family hopeful for closure, seventy-three years after their brother’s death.
“We got the telegram on my birthday, November 1, that they were missing in action,” said Claudette Bethke.
In 1952, at just 12 years old, Bethke got word her older brother, Gail Daugherty, died in a military plane crash in Alaska. “The airplane was on their last maneuvers before coming home," Bethke said. "It was called Operation Warm Wind, and it hit a mountain.”
All these years later, at age 84, she’s still seeking answers. “I’ve been fighting a long time,” Bethke said.
Bethke and her brother, Charles Daugherty, are the only two siblings left of eight, working to honor Gail’s legacy. “We've been trying to get answers from the government, which we never got a decent answer,” Daugherty said.
They want to see the Flight 293 Remembrance Act passed. Flight 293 was another flight in 1963 that went missing not in action.
“I’m hoping this act goes through to bring home, not just my brother and his friends on the airplane, but all the other airplanes that crashed in Alaska,” Bethke said. “I’m hoping I can see it passed and get some results before I die,” Daugherty adds.
The act would provide recognition and support to families of service members whose lives were lost in non-combat military plane crashes. “This act will create a database, bring awareness, and also make Congress look for us in all of this,” Anderson-Dell said.
Anderson-Dell has played a big part in all of this, as the founder of Honored Bound. “My role in all this is that I'm honored and bound to make sure that our government holds true to and never leaves our fallen behind,” Anderson-Dell said.
After her grandpa’s plane also went missing in 1952, Anderson-Dell began looking for missing military planes herself. “Not only do I fight, I also look. I can't tell the military, ‘Hey, you need to look for these without actually doing it myself,’” Anderson-Dell said.
Now, both planes that went missing in 1952 were found, and Anderson-Dell was among those to get boots on the ground. “Our government said that we never leave our fallen behind, and you're leaving this pool of service members behind, and I want you guys to hold to it,” Anderson-Dell said.
Bethke and Daugherty are hopeful that this bill will pass, and that their brother will not be left behind. “I was in the service myself, and the word is no man left behind," Daugherty said. "Well, they were servicemen.”
“If we could get something of my brother’s, that would be closure," Bethke adds.
According to Anderson-Dell, the Flight 293 Remembrance Act has not yet been passed. It was filed earlier this month and is making its way through Congress.
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