NEWS
February 7, 1998 | RICHARD BOUDREAUX and NORMAN KEMPSTER, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
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.