Carrier Gear Dumped, Navy Told : Crew Allegedly Damaged, Tossed Missing Items Overboard

Navy investigators have been told that some of the more than $1 million in equipment reported missing from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was dumped overboard after being damaged by the ship’s personnel, government sources said Friday.

According to the sources, investigators are also trying to determine if any of the sophisticated devices were sold on the black market after being stolen from the San Diego-based carrier.

The disclosures came as Navy officials said that stringent new procurement rules have been established to prevent unauthorized requisition of silver ingots through the military supply system.

Thirty-one of the nine-pound silver bars were delivered to the ship in 1983 after a procurement office received computer-generated requests for the precious metal, which is used on some ships--but not aircraft carriers--to repair electronic equipment. Two ingots later were recovered in a drug raid in Coronado and five were found aboard the carrier while it was berthed at North Island Naval Air Station, authorities said Thursday.

‘More Difficult’

“Rules have been tightened up so that it is a lot more difficult” to obtain silver ingots from supply depots, said Lt. Cmdr. Bill Harlow, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon. He gave no further details.

The Navy’s investigations into the purloined silver bars and the missing equipment were disclosed Thursday by California Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), who told a House subcommittee that “serious supply and procurement irregularities” on the Kitty Hawk could “shake the Navy to its foundations.”

Sources familiar with the Naval Investigative Service probe said that Petty Officer Robert Jackson, who was an internal auditor aboard the ship for 21 months, had told investigators that some equipment listed as unaccounted for in the ship’s periodic inventories actually had been thrown overboard.

Jackson’s attorney, Randy Whaley, confirmed Friday that his client “had heard about equipment being dumped overboard.” And Jackson, in a handwritten statement given to Bates’ staff last month, said there was “no accountability for what is being thrown over the side.” Whaley said Jackson knew nothing about possible black-market sales of equipment from the carrier, but sources said that investigators are trying to determine if some stolen devices had been sold.

‘Lost’ in Storeroom

Jackson supplied Bates’ staff with inventory forms reporting that equipment such as sophisticated gyroscopes, expensive electronic devices and a host of aircraft parts were “lost” in the storeroom.

Sources said dumping damaged equipment overboard and then listing it as “lost” would be simpler than reporting it as damaged--and would preclude possible disciplinary action against crew members responsible for the damage.

Jackson, now on shore duty, told The Times in an interview Thursday that he sought the congressman’s help in obtaining reassignment from the Kitty Hawk--a 1,046-foot ship with a crew of 5,000--after one of his shipmates learned he had reported the irregularities and had “threatened to break me into little pieces and throw me into the screws of the ship.”

Gaylord Shaw reported from Washington and David Freed from San Diego.