Many families have requested us to scatter their relatives ashes at sea or over land. Especially if the member was a former military aviator, or aircrewman, or seagoing sailor, having your relative's ashes scattered from a former Navy Training Command aircraft is many people's last wish.
We have done several ashes scattering's from our Navy T-28C, the photo sequence shown above was for CDR Paul Goodwin, a Naval Aviatior whose family wanted his ashes scattered at sea off Ft Rosecrans so that family could watch the entire ceremony.. We have also performed an ashes scattering over NAF El Centro which we did during their annual airshow click here for T-28C Ashes Scattering Video Clip).
We typically meet the family at the WWAM hangar in El Cajon, have the familiy load the ashes onboard the T-28C (in the speedbrake), saying their goodbys and taking photos.
We then escort the family to the viewing site (e.g. Ft Rosecrans), and get them in place to look seaward and watch the ashes being scattered. We launch the T-28 which flies overhead so the family can watch as we make a sweeping turn and parallel to the beach (out at sea from the Ft Rosecrans vieing area), we open the speedbrake and the family member's ashes are scattered immediately and cleanly into the air for their last descent to the sea.
