We always thought my dad wanted his ashes spread over Cherry Hill, the family farm and B&B in the Catskill Mountains where he grew up. But my mother vetoed our plans to airdrop his ashes from my Cardinal and said he had expressed a desire to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. And so he was. The ceremony, with full military honors, was very impressive.
But cremation - and the question of what to do with the resulting ashes - has become more popular - and problematic. Typically, a group of family and friends will take the urn with the ashes to one of the decedent's favorite places and scatter the ashes. For sailors, the favorite place might be on the water and for pilots, in the air above a favorite fly-over spot.
As a result of the popularity of cremation, sea and aerial scatterings have become popular ways to honor the passing of a loved one. A number of commercial companies have been formed to provide scattering services from boats or airplanes for a fee. There's even at least one company that will pack the ashes and send them aloft in a fireworks display.
The commercial companies charge about $350 for the "service" that normally includes a certificate of the "burial" and the GPS coordinates of the location where the ashes were released. Depending on the type of airplane and their insurance requirements (and whether they're operating under Part 91 or Part 135), some of the companies allow passengers on the funeral flight. (If you decide to go the way of a commercial operator, caveat emptor pertains. The Cremation Association of North America, which has developed a Model Cremation Law, reported there was litigation in California that involved a claim against an air delivery service that improperly placed cremated remains on a vacant lot rather than dispersing them in the public areas as requested. In 1997, the association reported, another California air delivery service was discovered with over 5,000 cremated remains that had not been scattered in accordance with contractual obligations.)
But pilots are an independent lot and many want to do it themselves. Surprisingly, there's nothing in the Federal Aviation Regulations to prohibit a pilot from dropping ashes from an airplane. The only regulation that applies is FAR 91.15, "Dropping Objects. No pilot in command of a civil aircraft may allow any object to be dropped from that aircraft in flight that creates a hazard to persons or property. However, this section does not prohibit the dropping of any object if reasonable precautions are taken to avoid injury or damage to persons or property."
But do-it-themselves pilots have found it's not as easy as it would seem to disperse ashes from an airplane with dignity. First of all, the "ashes" aren't all ashes. The remains include bone fragments, that if not mechanically reduced, can be too large to drift away. According to Ned Roche, a funeral director in Lenox, Massachusetts, it's wise to let the crematorium know that you intend to scatter the ashes. The crematorium will use magnets to remove any metal and finely process the cremains.
But ejecting fine ash into the slipstream of an airplane poses major difficulties. A couple of accounts I found on the internet (and edited) are indicative of the problems pilots have experienced trying to disperse cremains with the appropriate dignity.
