Some of dental hygienist Jamie Tanabe’s patients knew that she enjoyed flying as a hobby and wanted to become an airline pilot.

One patient, the director of a large mortuary near Los Angeles, asked if she’d considered starting a business scattering cremated human remains from the air.

The idea appealed to Tanabe on the spot—“I was picking my patient’s teeth and picking his brain at the same time,” she said. Tanabe was working part-time for a scenic flight company, giving tours to Japanese tourists. But she was ready for a change and knew that once she became a mother she’d want a more flexible schedule.

With flights grounded following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Tanabe researched government regulations for disposing of cremated remains. She developed a device to drop the ashes without their being blown back into her Cessna 182, and practiced with an eight-pound bag of pet remains.

She soon launched Tanabe Flying Services, in Fullerton, Calif. Through July 2009, Tanabe had scattered the remains of 620 people over four states, the Pacific Ocean, the Santa Monica Mountains, parks and forests, the Grand Canyon, Catalina Island, the desert—almost anywhere in the region a client wishes.

Tanabe spends much of her time securing the consent of state and federal agencies, as well as from private landowners, to scatter remains above their property. She interrupted an interview for this article to take a telephone call from a hang-gliding park whose permission she needed and later received. A client had asked for the ashes of her husband— kept in an urn at home since he was killed in a 1978 hang-gliding accident—to be scattered over the park.

The widow first had wanted the remains scattered above the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, where Tanabe has an annual permit. Clients sometimes change their minds, which is fine, Tanabe explained, since she wants to satisfy them. She also scatters pet remains. For an additional fee, clients can fly with Tanabe (in a larger airplane, a Piper Aztec) and pull the lever to release the ashes themselves.

Tanabe suggests that those who remain on the ground grasp balloons of a favorite color so that she can spot them. She also recommends that they write notes on or in the balloons, then release the balloons after the remains have descended.

“Some families are businesslike; others, I’m holding their hands. Some want to do it right away; others keep the remains for a while. Some scatter only part of the remains,” Tanabe said. “I do a lot [of scatterings] on the day of the memorial service because they want closure right away. There’s no right or wrong.”

Tanabe’s favorite client was the man who wrote a poem that contained a gap, at which time his cremated remains would be dropped. A CD of the poem was synchronized to play in the airplane and on the ground simultaneously. As Tanabe circled a pier, the deceased’s son, sitting beside her, scattered the remains at the appointed time.

Tanabe does not view her job as morbid. Rather, she said, “I help people fulfill their last wish. It’s very uplifting.”

Melody Foxx, a Long Beach therapist, appreciates Tanabe’s service. Foxx hired Tanabe to scatter the remains of her grandmother, Joann Nicolas, who passed away last February, together with Foxx’s dog, Buster, an Australian shepherd-golden retriever mix, who died six years ago.

On a cloudy day in May, Foxx waited on Bolsa Chica Dog Beach. Tanabe telephoned her as she prepared to take off. Foxx scattered flowers along the shore, walking with her new dog, Burgie. She saw the airplane appear below the clouds and the ashes fall.

“It was a beautiful experience. … I liked letting them go together so they wouldn’t be alone. I know how much [my grandmother] loved the dog and the dog loved her. Mrs. Tanabe was really nice to work with. She was empathetic, returned calls, answered questions, and was very understanding of the loss. Especially when you go through the loss of a loved one, you have to have understanding. …

“It was nice to pick the place and to be there to witness it. It’s nice because [the ashes] can blow in the air and go anywhere in the world. That’s definitely the way I want to go.” —By Hillel Kuttler