Family Changes Sept. 11 Pilot's Tombstone To Remove Wife's

Family Changes Sept. 11 Pilot's Tombstone To Remove Wife's Name

Family Feuds Over Pilot's Grave Marker

November 30, 2006

DENVER -- The widow of United Airlines Flight 93 pilot Capt. Jason Dahl has filed a lawsuit against the cemetery where her husband is buried after the cemetery changed her husband's grave marker.

Dahl was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked and crashed into a Pennsylvania field, killing all on board.

Dahl's wife, Sandy Dahl, had their names inscribed together on a gravestone at San Jose's Oak Hill Memorial Park in California. Sandy Dahl is now suing Oak Hill Memorial Park after she said the cemetery replaced the tombstone with both their names on it with one that has only Jason Dahl's name on it -- and did so at the request of her mother-in-law, Mildred Dahl.

On Monday, one day before the lawsuit was filed, Mildred Dahl died at age 83.

Sandy Dahl said she had the family's permission to be buried in the same site as her husband.

"After the family gave me written permission to be buried in the same site, I paid for a head marker with his face in the middle and both of our names on each side," said Sandy Dahl. "We had it placed, and we had a funeral. I was under the impression that that's where I was to be buried, and I don't intend to ever marry again."

Dahl said she found out that the grave marker had been changed by a friend whose father's headstone was a few gravesites away from Jason's.
"She called me up and said, 'Sandy, did you change your mind about being buried next to Jason?'" said Sandy Dahl. "I said, 'No,' and she said,

'Your headstone is gone.'"

"I come to find out from someone at Oak Hill that they had desecrated my husband's grave," said Sandy Dahl. "They dug a hole in his grave, buried his headstone with my name on it and replaced it with a headstone his mother picked with just his name on it."

Sandy Dahl said Oak Hill changed the grave marker at the request of the late Mildred Dahl.

"But I have written permission to be buried next to him from the Dahl family," said Sandy Dahl. "They had no right to do that. I would never have buried him there if I could not be buried next to my husband."

Jason Dahl's brother-in-law, Bill Heiderich, said he doubted that Mildred Dahl or any other Dahl family member had agreed to allow Sandra Dahl to be buried next to Jason, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Heiderich, who is married to Jason Dahl's sister, told the Mercury News, "That double-headstone was a shot at the family. She put a double stone on a place where she cannot be buried."

The Mercury News reported that Mildred Dahl and her late husband, Duane Dahl, had bought a four-grave site at Oak Hill years ago. Heiderich said the gravesites were for the family to be buried at, not Sandy Dahl, the Mercury News reported.

Sandy Dahl, who now lives in Colorado, said she wants to move her husband's tombstone to a cemetery in Littleton.

"I certainly don't trust Oak Hill Cemetery anymore," said Sandy Dahl. "Unfortunately, Mrs. Dahl died Monday, and she is buried under a marker with both her headstone and her husband's headstone, together. So obviously she felt that was appropriate for her, but not for me. And I'm not putting up with that."