In a 2005 newspaper interview, Tibbets said he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war. Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, Newhouse said. Tibbets suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months. Tibbets died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, said Gerry Newhouse, a long-time friend. Tibbets died Thursday at his home in Columbus, Ohio. Paul Tibbets stands beside the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress bomber he piloted over Hiroshima to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan.