'We never recovered him': Quest to identify remains from Ground Zero continues

Efforts to identify victims have been complicated by a number of factors.Human remains were damaged in the plane crashes and fires caused by jet fuel, meaning the office had only portions of victims for DNA samples, Soler said.Scauso added that because of the timing of the attacks, many firefighters were changing shifts, but some stayed to help, grabbing whatever extra gear they could find. This meant some first responders recovered were wearing uniforms with others' names, complicating identification.The World Trade Center site also had many more victims than the other 9/11 terrorist attack sites.The remains of five of the 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon were never identified because of similar conditions. According to the National Park Service, enough remains were recovered to use DNA, dental records and fingerprints to identify all 40 victims aboard United Airlines flight 93, which crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.Remains from the World Trade Center have been packaged and sealed to help preserve DNA for testing in the years to come. Soon after the attacks, individuals were identified using fingerprints or dental recor...