A Marine officer testified Tuesday that the ski lift cable cut by a U.S. warplane in the Italian Alps, killing 20 people, wasn't shown on a flight map of the area.
Capt. Michael Thomas Reece, who was the operations officer at the U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy, on the day of the disaster, testified at a hearing for two of the four Marines on the EA-6B Prowler that hit the cable during a low-level flight on Feb. 3."There was nothing on the chart," Reece testified.
However, he also said that the plane should have been flying at 1,000 feet above the ground, while the cable was at about 370 feet.
Reece said a warning tone should have sounded if the plane dipped below its prescribed altitude, and that all four crew members should have heard it and alerted each other.
As the hearing started, the lawyer for one of the four Marines argued that his client was not in control of the plane and couldn't even see where it was going.
Capt. Chandler P. Seagraves was in the back seat of the EA-6B Prowler jet and could only see to the sides, above and behind him, said his lawyer, Capt. Paul Kaplan.
"When the accident initially happened, he thought they had hit a bird," Kaplan said. "A lack of knowledge - that's what the facts are going to show here."
The hearing, similar to a civilian grand jury, will determine whether Seagraves, 28, of Nineveh, Ind., and Capt. William Raney II, 26, of Englewood, Colo., should be court-martialed for the Feb. 3 deaths.
Another hearing will be held in June for the jet's pilot, Capt. Richard Ashby, 30, of Mission Viejo, Calif., and the navigator, Capt. Joseph P. Schweitzer, 30, of Westbury, N.Y.
Seagraves and Raney were electronic jamming specialists sitting in the jet's rear cockpit when it cut the ski lift cable on Feb. 3.
The military says Seagraves and Raney are just as potentially culpable as the pilot and navigator because part of their job was to serve as lookouts. Their hearing came first because lawyers for Ashby and Schweitzer requested a delay until June.
The four aviators each face 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter and 20 counts of negligent homicide. The maximum sentence for each manslaughter and homicide count is 20 years in prison.