Medical Examiner IDs Remains of 9/11 Flight Attendant

In the years since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the office of the medical examiner has steadily worked to identify the remains of the 2,749 victims. The remains of about 40% of the people killed at the World Trade Center have not been identified.

Last month, human bones were found in an abandoned manhole by utility workers doing routine labor along the western edge of the site in lower Manhattan. Officials said that the manhole had been paved over and forgotten when a service road was built there while excavating trade center rubble.

The discovery prompted another search for more remains that may have been overlooked during earlier searches of the site where the towers stood. So far, some 200 pieces of bone and other remains have been found. The search has involved tearing up parts of side streets near the 16-acre site, exploring the rooftops of some buildings, and excavating more manholes in addition to the dozen or so that city workers are already exploring.

The city’s medical examiner’s office announced Wednesday that some of the previously discovered remains have been identified as three more victims of the attack. These remains were recovered long ago, before the renewed searches began last month. Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, said that the victims identified were Karen Martin, Douglas Stone, and another man whose family asked that his name not be released. Martin, of Danvers, Mass., was an attendant on American Flight 11 that was hijacked and crashed into the north tower, and Stone, of Dover, N.H., was a passenger.

The identifications were made after the families of the three victims submitted additional DNA samples to the medical examiner’s lab. Over the years since the attacks, the medical examiner’s office has occasionally asked some families to submit more DNA, typically from cheek swabs, to increase their chance of finding a match among the hundreds of pieces of remains awaiting identification.

The city of New York is hiring several additional forensic experts to assist in the renewed efforts to search for remains around the site. As many as 10 forensic anthropologists will join in the search on the next phase of the project, which could last into the middle of next year, according to Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler.