ROME — Capt. Richard J. Ashby was guiding a U.S. military plane through a cloudless afternoon sky over the Val di Fiemme, a playground for skiers in Italy's Dolomite Mountains, when something went terribly wrong.
The 31-year-old Marine aviator from Mission Viejo had logged 750 accident-free hours in the aircraft, an EA-6B Prowler, in training runs like this one Tuesday and in the real thing--surveillance missions over war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina. This was his first pass over the Dolomites.
Believing at first that he was at a safe altitude, Ashby was stunned to see what he thought was an electric cable straight ahead and dipped to try to get under it, his lawyer said Friday.
The pilot knew instantly that he had failed, the lawyer added, but only after landing at his base 60 miles away did he realize the consequences.
Ashby's plane severed a ski-lift suspension wire--apparently with its tail or a wing--and sent 20 people aboard a cable car plummeting at least 300 feet to their deaths. The disaster unleashed anti-American outbursts here, strained U.S.-Italian relations and revived calls by Italian leftists to close the NATO nation's seven American bases.
Seeking to quell the storm, U.S. officials Friday admitted the obvious: Ashby was flying below his approved minimum altitude of 500 feet. President Clinton, declaring he was "heartsick" over the fatalities, promised a "no-holds-barred" investigation.
And a day after saying that the errant Prowler had none, Marine Corps officials handed over the plane's flight recorder to angry Italian investigators, who said some of the data might be missing because someone failed to turn the right switch while removing the device.
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At the center of the tempest are Ashby and his three-member crew, part of the Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 2 based in Cherry Point, N.C. They had less than a month left in a six-month assignment to the 31st Air Expeditionary Wing at Aviano air base in northeastern Italy.
Grounded at the base, idled in uniform, they are subjects of an international scandal and parallel Italian and U.S. investigations.
U.S. officials say they are well aware that their handling of the accident could affect the future of U.S. air bases in allied Italy, staging area for NATO air missions over the Balkans, the Mideast and the Persian Gulf.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi asserts that the pilot's "earth-shaving flight" broke the law.
