Robert Cyr Jr, a US navy airman, had gone missing in 1944 when his seaplane crashed in the Segond channel
The remains of a US military aviator who went missing after his crew crashed during the second world war were recovered and identified through DNA analysis and his family recently laid him to rest in Florida, according to officials.
US navy airman Robert Cyr Jr’s burial in Clearwater, Florida, brought to an end a decades-long saga that began on 22 January 1944, when he and eight fellow crewmates crashed while they were aboard a seaplane as it took off in the Segond channel in what is now the south Pacific’s Republic of Vanuatu.
Three of those aviators survived; four were recovered in the days following the wreck; and Cyr, then age 19, was one of two who remained missing even after the war was over, US military officials said in a statement.
Researchers and divers from Sealark Exploration located and documented that wreck site in July 2022 during an underwater investigation conducted at the behest of the Defense POW/MIA accounting agency (DPAA), which dedicates itself to identifying US military personnel who are unaccounted for after past conflicts. The DPAA said a second group working with the agency, Cosmos Archaeology, later excavated the site on separate occasions in June 2024 and May 2025 – efforts which yielded possible human remains and bone tissue.
