The following day, an Air Force C-141 transport plane collided with a German military plane at 35,000 feet off the African coast, killing all nine crew members on the U.S. plane and 24 on the German aircraft.
An investigation disclosed that the German plane was on the wrong flight path and that African air traffic controllers failed to notice it was on a collision course with the U.S. jet.
The lead Air Force investigator found that a collision avoidance system "could have prevented the accident."
In the aftermath, the Pentagon instructed the services to reallocate money to speed up installation of the warning device in passenger and cargo-carrying aircraft, including the C-141s.
Even then, the final C-141 didn't get the warning device until five years after the 1997 collision.
Relatives of those killed in the 1997 accident say it should not have taken such a tragedy to make the planes safer.
"If they're going to send these young men into hazardous areas, then they should have made the technology available to keep them safe," said Jean Bryant, whose son, Staff Sgt. Stacy D. Bryant, was among those killed. "They were there on behalf of their country. They had to give their lives because the system was not available."
The military has also lagged behind commercial aviation in the use of sophisticated flight data recorders, which can detect potential problems before they cause a crash.
"It has dramatically altered our accident-prevention program," said John Marshall, Delta Air Lines' vice president for corporate safety and compliance and a former Air Force fighter pilot.
Last year, Defense Undersecretary David S.C. Chu, who chairs the Pentagon safety council, successfully sought $15 million for the Navy, Marines and Air Force to continue testing the technology in various aircraft.
Deaths in Private Autos
The greatest number of accidental military deaths occurs in private motor vehicles. Indeed, military drivers are far more likely than civilians to die in crashes.
In the Marine Corps, 25.17 individuals out of 100,000 perished in motor vehicle accidents in the last fiscal year. The figure for the Air Force was 17.54, and for the Army, 16.5. The rate for the general population is about 15 per 100,000, according to the Transportation Department.
Half of the accidental deaths among military personnel in the last fiscal year -- 284 -- occurred in off-duty private vehicles.
