Bonus Episode | Flight 293 Remembrance Act

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Unsolved Histories Introduction

0:59Felix Bunnell here, producer and host of Unsolved Histories. This is a special episode because we got some big news last week about Season 1 of this podcast. The eight episodes go deep on a military charter plane with 101 people aboard that disappeared into the ocean between Seattle and Alaska in 1963. The story we tell in Season 1 started out as a mystery about why the plane went down, but it became so much more. An exploration of grief, a reckoning of memory, and a journey of healing.

1:29But it also became a stark lesson about a bureaucratic loophole that leaves countless military families feeling abandoned and forgotten. If you haven't yet heard Season 1, it's called Unsolved Histories, What Happened to Flight 293. But even if you haven't, this new episode is worth your time and attention. This is Unsolved Histories, the Flight 293 Remembrance Act. You're making me cry.

1:58Wow. We don't need to hear any more than a few seconds of this tape from a few days ago. That's amazing. Thank you so much. That's going to mean so much to those families and stuff. That's me reacting as I took a phone call from a staff member in the office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State. The news was completely unexpected, and it obviously blew me away. I didn't think I'd get this emotional. I knew it would be emotional. I didn't think it would be this much. Oh, man. That's really cool. Yeah. Thank you so much. That's really great news.

2:28Thank you so much. Yeah. That is so cool. That is just the best news ever in a long time. Thank you so very much. That's awesome. Yeah, of course. From KSL Podcasts, I'm Felix Bunnell. This is Unsolved Histories, the Flight 293 Remembrance Act.

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Flight 293 Background

4:09If you heard Season 1 of Unsolved Histories, you might remember Episode 7, which is called Leave No One Behind. That episode is about the sacred promise the U.S. military makes to the people who serve and to their families. No matter what happens to you, we won't give up until we find you or your remains. If you die, we will bring your body home for your loved ones to mourn and bury. What we learned in Episode 7 is that this promise to leave no one behind does not apply to active-duty military members who disappear while on non-combat flights that crash, including Flight 293.

4:51This is Kevin Smith of Air Force Mortuary Affairs, or AFMAO, in a short excerpt from Season 1. Whenever all evidence points to a complete loss, they are declared deceased. In the Mortuary Affairs, we work with the families to give them opportunities to hold body-not-recovered memorial services. That's pretty much the extent of it. Without a change in the regulations or new direction from Congress, Kevin Smith says AFMAO's hands are tied.

5:23What would you say to those families about where you draw the line between what's recoverable and what's not recoverable? Well, it's not something that we make that call. So, as a human, I can have empathy for them and offer my condolences and empathize with their loss. The woman who first explained this larger issue of the broken promise is Tanya Anderson-Dell. She knows all about it because her family lived it.

5:55Tanya and her dad and grandmother were ignored for decades after her grandfather, Airman Isaac Anderson, was lost on a military transport flight in Alaska in 1952. But Isaac Anderson wasn't just forgotten. As far as a critical part of the Defense Department was concerned, a part called the Defense Prisoner of War Missing in Action Accounting Agency, or DPAA, it was almost like Isaac Anderson had never existed in the first place. This is another short excerpt from Season 1.

6:27If you are missing in a training loss, after the initial search, there is no agency within our government that looks for you. Tanya discovered through firsthand experience what Ashley Wright from DPAA refused to talk about on tape. That because of what feels like technicalities about when and where the plane went down, nobody from the U.S. military was even aware that 52 men, including her grandfather, were still missing on the Globemaster. Until that Army helicopter crew spotted an old life raft on a glacier 60 years later.

7:00So my grandfather's plane is Korean conflict time. When you look at the Korean conflict numbers that's on DPAA's website, those numbers don't include the 52. We're not even tracked. There's no database. There's nothing like it is for missing in action. And I don't understand why, because they all did the same thing. They swore to serve and protect this country. And so that is what the bigger picture is. Tanya founded her one-woman nonprofit, called Honored Bound, to bring attention to the other missing planes and missing service members that the military has truly left behind.

7:34I have 501 servicemen that are missing. That's 31 planes. Over the weekend, I was doing some research and I found another plane. I haven't had a chance to add that to the list. So we'll be at 32, 33, and the list keeps growing. But if you pick up the phone and ask DPAA how many of these servicemen and women are missing, they can't tell you, because they don't account for us. If you call the Air Force, if you call the Navy, any of those branches, the personnel, casualty office for each one of those branches, they can't tell you how many are operational lost.

8:09Tanya has met with multiple members of Congress and asked for this loophole to be closed. But so far, no one has been willing to help. When you go to your senators and stuff, a lot of them will say, oh, I will help you. But when they learn that it's a bigger picture, I think they're scared to get out there and be that first one to open up that can of worms that there's a pool of servicemen and women that we don't look for. That there's no agency that looks for them, tracks some accounts for them, or dollars set aside for somebody who wants to look for them like they do for missing in action.

8:49Hello. Hey, Tanya, it's Felix. Hey, how are you? Can I merge you with my call with Greg? Yes, you can. Okay, stand by.

Tanya Anderson-Dell's Story

8:56Tanya Anderson-Dell has spent the past 25 years calling attention to the fact that those missing active duty service members have been forgotten by the Defense Department and that their families have been ignored. Greg is Greg Barrowman, who lost his 17-year-old brother, Private Bruce Barrowman, on Flight 293. Greg was the first person I ever talked to with the connection to the flight, way back in 2016. He's the person we get to know the most in Season 1.

9:28The other day, after I stopped blubbering, I called Tanya and Greg right away to let them know what I'd just heard from Senator Patty Murray's office. All right, I pressed the merge call, so Greg and Tanya should be on the line with me. I am. I'm here. All right, and I want to record this because that's the kind of work I do. This next part is long, but it's real, just how it sounded. It's me, minutes after hearing the news myself, trying to explain to Tanya and Greg by reading from and condensing a one-page fact sheet. I just got some pretty amazing news a little while ago from a staff member of Senator Patty Murray's office.

10:01On as early as this Friday, they're going to be introducing a bill, a bipartisan bill in the Senate and in the House. It's called the Flight 293 Remembrance Act, but it talks about all the things that we've wanted in terms of – I have a one-page sheet about – directs the DOD in collaboration with the VA to review military records and identify all non-combat military plane crashes classified as operational loss, non-more loss. Establishes a publicly accessible database with the names, ranks, and service details of all armed forces members who perished in such incidents.

10:34And family assistance. Ensures that families of the deceased are informed of existing and new resources available to them. Collects and analyzes data to improve the delivery of assistance and support to these families. Commemoration efforts. Recognize the service of those lost in non-combat plane crashes through memorials, plaques, ceremonies, and public acknowledgements. Ensures these members are included in annual remembrance activities. And then reporting requirements. It's mandates the DOD to submit a report to Congress that details the support provided to families, progress made in establishing the database, the effectiveness of the act's initiatives, feedback from families, and recommendations for legislative improvements to better serve these families.

11:07It's not about searching, but it's about bringing equity to the families of missing not in action with those missing in action. In case I read that too fast or was otherwise unintelligible, here's the short version. There's a bipartisan bill called the Flight 293 Remembrance Act being introduced in Congress. It goes a long way to address many of the issues that leave Flight 293 families and other families whose loved ones are missing after non-combat plane crashes feeling forgotten and abandoned.

11:38Here comes more of me telling Tanya and Greg all about it and recognizing Tanya for the critical role she plays in all of this. It's endorsed already by, they've got endorsements from the Tragedy Assistance Programs for Survivors, TAPS, National Military Families Association, and Military Officers Association of America.

12:18Great. So it's got Republican and Democratic support and a bunch of organizational support, and it's going to be introduced in the Senate and the House as early as Friday. That's amazing. Isn't that crazy? But Tanya, this never would have happened without you and all the work you've done. You schooled us on this. I mean, I knew how Greg's family had suffered and the other 293 families had suffered, but nobody had put it together. I hadn't certainly figured out the big picture that the missing not in action families were totally ignored. I mean, I knew from Greg's experience that the families were ignored, but I didn't know it was a systemic thing.

12:52And you articulated that and explained that, and you've been beating the drum for this. And when you helped me talk to that staffer for Senator Murray about a year ago, that helped lay the groundwork for this. And you're coming out to that ceremony for the 60th anniversary and the way you spoke to the families and the way you figured in that episode seven, where you talked all about your grandfather and contextualize this as something that was far bigger than just the one flight here between Seattle and Alaska in 1963. This is a total team effort, and nothing like this would ever even have happened if not for all the groundwork you have laid over the years and the way you schooled us and helped us and inspired people to keep going when it seemed like there was nothing to keep going toward.

13:35So I want to make sure you understand how grateful that I feel to be part of this little team and that you're key to this team, too. I'm not a lot for words. If this can make it all the way through, every fight, every letter, every conversation with the family member, to tell them don't give up, it's worth it. It's worth every moment. Wow. Spoken by a true frontrunner, somebody that's pushed beyond the divide of bureaucracy and reality.

14:07And sometimes the two meet, and I want to thank you personally for all that you've done also there, Tanya. You guys are welcome. I'm really at a lot of words. I'm just happy that a senator actually listens.

14:23Look, I'm speechless, and you can hear it. That's what you recorded. I mean, for the first time, I'm speechless. And I speak this a lot, and to hear that me sitting down, you know, with you all on that call, and he actually listened. They actually listened and was willing to jump out there when no one else would. Everybody said, oh, we'll help you, we'll help. But no one has ever brought it to the floor in both places and willing to, you know, put the ink to the paper and stand by us and bring awareness to that void that is missing.

15:00So, I wrote my first letter in 99, in 2025. That's insane. God, that's crazy. And the fact that these guys are, they have, like, bipartisan support. They've got the senator in Alaska, you know, the destination for both the flights we know the best. It's like, it's the Washington-Alaska connection. And the fact they've got Republicans and Democrats and these other national organizations already endorsing it. It's like, I mean, it's a weird political climate. Who knows what will happen? But it's hard to imagine anyone voting against this unless I'm, like, I know I'm naive and I know I'm, I know I'm, I know I don't know, I don't know fully understand politics at that level.

15:36But this seems like it has a really good chance of passing, you know, with a lot of support. I hope it does. Wow. I can't see that there would be any political divide because the reality is it's affected all of us and far beyond their political affiliation. It's more on the human emotion, human standard of reality that we all face. So, that in itself is its own animal that, you know, rears sugly heads sometimes on both sides.

16:07So, this is fantastic news. It is. It's wonderful news.

16:19I got to give you an update on the whole pajama saga. That's my colleague and friend at Cairo Newsradio in Seattle, Ursula Royteen. I immediately went to Costco yesterday after the show, got a new set of pajamas, showed it to all of you on the G and Ursula Show Facebook page. Well, you're not going to believe the update. Ursula has been with the station for close to 40 years, and I first worked with her when I was a 22-year-old intern. So, I was thrilled to join her and G Scott on the G and Ursula Show to break the news.

16:49But right now, we need to talk about something really special, because if you haven't listened to it already, Unsolved Histories is a great podcast, and our resident historian, Felix Bunnell, and his very talented team have been doing this podcast now for, I would say, several months. Felix? Yeah, the season one that came out last year in October and ran through into November, it was all about this plane that left McCord Air Force Base back on June 3rd, 1963, carrying about 58 active duty service members plus family members and civilians.

17:22It disappeared. And when those 58 active duty service members disappeared, they were declared dead. They weren't declared missing in action. So, the family's got all the settlement you get when your loved one dies in the military, but they're not missing in action. And so, while the military has said for centuries, we leave no one behind, it didn't apply to these families. So, they were just, they've been in the cold for more than 60 years. I started working on this podcast about 10 years ago when I did a little story on My Northwest saying, do you have any connection to this flight?

17:54And a guy named Greg Barrowman got in touch with me. Greg's on the phone with us right now. Oh, that's great. You there, Greg? Yeah. Great. I'm glad you can be with us today to talk about this. And then, through the course of working on this story and understanding what happened to Greg's family, because Greg lost his 17-year-old brother, Bruce. Army private. Disappeared. Not missing in action. Just gone. No corpse. No remembrance. Nothing. Like, if you're missing in action, the government keeps in touch with you. You get invited to an event every year. Your family does. You get updated on if there's been a search or anything. For the families on Flight 293 and about 500 other families from other plane crashes since World War II, nothing.

18:29They don't exist. They're not on a list anywhere. No one keeps track of them. But there's a woman named Tanya Anderson-Dell down in Florida who we met through this process, Greg and I, and she's been trying to track those planes and keep in touch with those families. And she schooled us about what the bigger issue was. And Tanya joined us on the phone, too. Are you there, Tanya? Yes, I am. Yeah. So this has been this nationwide little family community building. You know, Bonneville is all about building up communities and families. This is what this podcast has been all about. I've been schooled about this big hole in the federal law about how they treat families of missing people if they're in active duty but not missing in action.

Flight 293 Remembrance Act Discussion

19:02And so we just learned a couple days ago I got a call from a staffer at Senator Murray's office. Legislation is going to be introduced tomorrow bipartisan by Senator Patty Murray, who's a Democrat, Senator Sullivan from Alaska, who's a Republican, called the Flight 293 Remembrance Act to address not just Flight 293 families but all these hundreds of families who've lost somebody who are just gone. And so it's not a done deal, right? This has to pass. It's a weird political season. Who knows what's going to happen, right? Wow. But I think the support will be there for this to become law, and the Defense Department will be directed to treat Greg Barrowman's family, Tanya Anderson's family.

19:38She lost her grandfather in a similar flight back in 1952. These people have been just forgotten for 50, 60, 70, 80 years, and that can change now if this legislation from Senator Murray goes forward. I would like to ask Greg how you feel knowing that by sharing this story and this podcast and raising awareness that it could result in legislation at this juncture. How does that feel? We were treated rather rudely by the military side of things. So it's a big relief to see that after 13 years now that at least we've got some attention just besides the podcast.

20:15So I'm elated. It's overdue, but praise God. And Tanya, that's her name, Tanya, this is for you. I just want to know, what has kept your motivation up to continue this effort to make sure that people know and be heard about this? What's been your motivation and your why behind this? It has been my grandmother making a promise, and it's a promise kept, that I will continue to fight to bring awareness for other families and also families who have reached out to me, who have heard my story and my fight for my grandfather, Airman Isaac Anderson Sr., that we will never leave our fallen behind.

20:58Each one of these men and some women have raised their hand to protect and serve our country. And our country says we'll never leave our fallen behind, but they have failed these men and women because they don't treat us the way they treat the rest of them. And so I will continue to fight, and that's why I do fight. It's for other families just like me, just like Greg, to get closure and to bring our loved ones home. When DPAA gets $200 million a year to look for MIA, that doesn't include us, and we want to be included. And I will fight and fight until we are included.

21:29Thank you so much, Tanya. Felix, this has been your baby. This is something that you and Aaron Mason... Aaron Mason's brilliant. The bipartisan Flight 293 Remembrance Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, February 6th, just hours after Greg, Tanya, and I spoke on the radio with G and Ursula. Flight 293 families and others like them, whose loved ones are missing after non-combat plane crashes, are now reaching out to senators in their states and the House members who represent their district in Congress to voice their support for the Flight 293 Remembrance Act.

22:08In the weeks or perhaps months ahead, members of Congress will likely get the opportunity to vote on the bill. If it passes, the loophole that left hundreds of families and the sacrifices they made, ignored by the Defense Department, will be permanently closed. Greg Barrowman is clearly thrilled that the legislation has been introduced. But he's also looking beyond to what comes next in his six-decade quest for answers. To convince some entity that the U.S. military still won't do it.

22:41To search for the plane carrying his brother Bruce and 100 other souls. Where it lies on the bottom of the ocean in the Gulf of Alaska. And how this is all playing out, that's probably a better possibility now than at any other time in the past. Season 1 of Unsolved Histories, What Happened to Flight 293, is available wherever you get podcasts. That season was produced by a team including Aaron Mason, Trent Sell, and me. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram at Unsolved Histories Pod.

23:14Or visit our website, unsolvedhistoriespod.com. Episodes are posted every other Tuesday. Each covers an unsolved, little-known, or mysterious event in history. Follow Unsolved Histories by KSL now, wherever you get podcasts. Unsolved Histories is researched, written, and hosted by me, Felix Bunnell. Production and sound design by Josh Tilton. Special thanks to Trent Sell, Aaron Mason, Andrea Smartin, Kellyanne Halverson, Ryan Meeks, Amy Donaldson, Ben Kebrick, and Dave Cauley.

23:46Our executive producer is Cheryl Worsley. Unsolved Histories is produced by KSL Podcasts in association with Rhapsody Voices. Rhapsody Voices Rhapsody Rhapsody Rhapsody Rhapsody Rhapsody You