Confirmed: Remains found in Saginaw County are identified as missing pilot
Dec 16, 2021 Updated Dec 17, 2021
SAGINAW COUNTY, Mich. (WJRT) – Two Michigan mysteries have been solved — a mysterious plane crash in 2017 and the discovery of human remains found in Saginaw County more than a year later.
Saginaw County investigators were zeroing in Tuesday on the identity of human remains found in Chapin Township in 2018.
An Michigan State University anthropologist confirmed Thursday that the remains are those of a man who police believe jumped from an airplane. The confirmation was made through dental records.
Teeth were found in those Saginaw County woods in 2018 and the University of Michigan police had Xin Rong’s dental records. After examination, it was a match.
“There were all kinds of theories going around at first,” said Saginaw County Undersheriff Mike Gomez.
But finally, after more than three years of investigation, the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Office confirms the almost intact human skeletal remains found in the woods in southwest Saginaw County are that of Xin Rong.
He was a 27-year-old University of Michigan doctoral student who rented a Cessna from an Ann Arbor airport in March of 2015.
He filed a flight plane to Harbor Springs, but when that plane crashed in Mantiouwadge, Canada, north of Lake Superior, with no fuel, and no one on board, it had investigators stumped. Police and family believed Rong had jumped from the plane to his death.
“He had made comments to other people, he had made comments to his wife that was his intent,” says Gomez.
Investigators believed the auto-pilot settings had the plane had about 9,000 feet in the air, but where did Rong end up?
When human bones were found about a year and a half after the crash, Michigan State University anthropologist Joe Hefner determined the bones were so badly broken, it was possible the person had fallen from airplane.
Last month, a private company, Othram, performed a DNA test, which indicated the remains were that of a person most likely from eastern Asia.
Detectives began looking through Michigan missing persons cases for people of that ethnicity, which led them to Rong. His family was notified Thursday morning.
“Whether it is a year, whether it’s a day, whether it’s five years, it’s still an emotional experience,” Gomez said.
Rong’s widow lives in California and now the process will begin of reuniting his remains with his family.
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Missing University of Michigan student’s wife wants him declared dead
Updated: Sep. 22, 2017, 4:35 p.m.|Published: Sep. 22, 2017, 3:35 p.m.
ANN ARBOR, MI – The wife of missing University of Michigan student Xin Rong is attempting to get him declared officially deceased, according to court records.
Surong Ruan is scheduled to appear in the Washtenaw County Trial Court Oct. 5 for a hearing regarding a petition she filed in May, according to the records.
Authorities believe Rong, 27, jumped from a private plane he had rented as it flew somewhere between Ann Arbor and the north shore of Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada. The plane crashed in Canada but authorities did not find Rong with the wreckage.
Rong is still listed as missing or endangered by the Michigan State Police.
Ruan claims this is creating difficulties dealing with Rong’s estate, specifically with his property and the airplane rental’s insurance company.
“I cannot address some of these matters until there is a declaration he is deceased,” she wrote.
Ruan could not be reached for comment.
Rong, a School of Information doctoral candidate, rented a Cessna 172 from Michigan Flyers at Ann Arbor Municipal Airport March 15, according to the petition. The aviation hobbyist’s course was set for Harbor Springs in northern Michigan.
The plane is believed to have crashed around 11:38 p.m. in remote woods near the town of Marathon in Ontario, Canada.
The plane was empty.
“(There was) no sign of Rong in the cockpit and there were no signs of footprints leading away from the cockpit,” Ruan wrote in the petition.
The right door of the small aircraft was unlatched and open. Rong’s jacket, iPad, wallet and other personal items were discovered inside.
Canadian officials conducted a ground search near the crash site, but found nothing.
Soon thereafter, the University of Michigan Police Department listed Rong as a missing person.
Authorities have concluded Rong likely died by suicide in jumping from the plane at an unknown location during the 463 miles between Ann Arbor and the Canadian woods.
Rong is believed to have initiated the auto-pilot function on the plane, which kept it flying unmanned until it ran out of fuel and crashed in the woods, according to the petition.
Ruan believes Rong jumped.
“…I believe Xin Rong exited the aircraft and didn’t have a chance of being alive,” Ruan wrote in the petition.
Ruan says both of Rong’s parents still live in China, where he was born, and that she lives in San Francisco, which is making it hard to take care of matters in Michigan.
She filed a motion in May asking to expedite the matter because she lives so far away. A person seeking a death declaration generally has to publish a public notice in a newspaper once a month for four months before the case can be heard.
Ruan asked to bypass the public notice process.
“It is very painful for us to continue to wait for a court decision,” she wrote.
Judge Julia B. Owdziej, who is presiding over the case, denied the request, according to records. There was no reason specified in the records.
Meanwhile, the investigation is still technically open.
Rong’s cell phone last pinged at a cell tower in Petoskey, according to the petition, but a search of that area yielded nothing.
While the investigation is still open, however, officials with the Ontario Provincial Police, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and UMPD said this week that there are no significant updates on the case.
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Wife of missing U-M pilot asks that he be declared dead
Xin Rong was 27 when he went missing in March, 2017 after the plane he was flying crashed in Canada. Authorities have said they believe he committed suicide, jumping from the plane prior to the crash.
Six months after a University of Michigan doctoral student mysteriously vanished while piloting a plane — which eventually crash-landed in Canada — a woman who says she is his wife is asking a judge to declare him dead.
Xin Rong, who was 27 at the time of his disappearance, has been missing March 15.
The downed Cessna he had been flying was found in a densely wooded area in Ontario the same day he rented the aircraft from a flying group at the Ann Arbor Airport. But Rong was not there, there were no footprints in the snow and the plane was out of fuel, authorities have said.
A spokesman with the Ontario Provincial Police previously said authorities believe Rong jumped from the plane at some point during the flight. At the time, police said suicide was suspected.
In a petition to have Rong’s death established by a Washtenaw County probate judge, Surong Ruan, who says in court filings that she is his wife, wrote: “All the evidence indicates the aircraft was operating normally and crashed because it ran out of fuel, and at some point prior to the crash, the pilot exited the aircraft. As ground searches were negative, no parachute or life vests on the plane and the aircraft was cruising at around 9000 ft altitude, I believe Xin Rong exited the aircraft and didn’t have a chance of being alive.”
A hearing on the petition is scheduled for next month.
An official with the court said such petitions ask for the court to establish the cause, date and location of death.
His wife sought an earlier hearing in the case — rather than waiting months to publish notices of the hearing in a newspaper — but online court records indicate her request was denied.
In a letter to Judge Julia Owdziej dated May 31, she wrote that she lives in San Francisco and Rong’s parents live in China and said she is trying to take care of his property and address questions from insurance companies and the club that owned the plane Rong had been flying.
“I cannot address some of these matters until there is a declaration that he is deceased,” she wrote.
Reached by phone on Friday, she said she was not available to talk and hung up.
Last week, Diane Brown, a spokeswoman for the U-M Division of Public Safety and Security, said the investigation remains open and wrote in an e-mail that police “don’t have any new information to release.”
Rong was pursuing a PhD in the university’s School of Information and had an interest in aviation. A member of the flying club, who could not be reached last week, previously told the Free Press that Rong was a certified pilot.
On March 15, he flew out of Ann Arbor in a 1984 Cessna 172P owned by the Michigan Flyers. When it was overdue to return, authorities were notified and the wreckage was found in a forested area near Manitouwadge, Ontario, northeast of Munising over Lake Superior.
Documents filed in the probate case offer more details about his disappearance. In her letter to the judge, his wife wrote that Rong’s wallet, iPad and other personal items were found in the plane.
Also included in the court file is a letter from a university police sergeant dated March 24 that says, in addition to searches around the plane crash site, a search was conducted in the Petoskey area, “where Mr. Rong’s cellphone last pinged. Results were negative.”
A spokesman with the Ontario Provincial Police last week would not confirm whether the cell phone pinged to any towers in Canada and said their investigation would remain open until Rong’s whereabouts are known.
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