CINCINNATI — A man killed in a plane crash was incorrectly cremated and the body of the pilot was buried in the first man’s place, an Ohio coroner’s official said today.
The two Indiana men — pilot Arthur Potter, 67, and passenger Frank Granato Jr., 55 — were on board a small plane that crashed March 5 in rural Union County.
The body of Granato, formerly from New Castle, Pa., was sent to Potter’s family in Greenwood, Ind., and cremated. Potter’s body was sent to New Castle for burial by Granato’s family, said Ken Betz, director of the Montgomery County coroner’s office.
The problem was discovered last week when one of the families reported receiving the wrong personal effects, Betz said.
Potter’s wife, Deborah Potter, declined to comment. A person answering the phone at Granato’s residence in Carmel, Ind., also declined to comment.
Union County coroner Dr. David Applegate responded to the scene of the crash. He said today that the badly injured bodies could not be positively identified at the scene and that he sent them to the Montgomery County coroner’s office for identification from dental records.
Applegate said that officials with the Montgomery County coroner’s office later told him that bags used to transport the bodies to their office were mislabeled at the crash scene.
Betz said the Montgomery County office identified the remains through dental records but didn’t notice the findings conflicted with the initial IDs.
Applegate said he is working with the families and legal authorities to get the remains to the right places.
The red single-engine 2007 Evektor-Aerotechnik SportStar Plus was found in a wooded area about 75 miles northeast of Dayton after the plane failed to make a scheduled refueling stop at the Union County Airport.
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