Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : CITIES : Two Officers Relieved of Duties Over Jet Reports
The commanding officer and the maintenance officer at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station were relieved of duties for reporting that their F/A-18 Hornet fighter planes were ready for combat when they weren’t.
The commanding officer, Lt. Col. Robin L. Savio, was reassigned as executive officer of a headquarters unit, and Maj. Alexander Aitken, who was aviation maintenance officer, has not yet been reassigned.
Savio’s unit, along with a second F/A-18 squadron from El Toro, had flown as combat air patrols in support of Air Force planes that bombed the Libyan capital of Tripoli in April.
The reporting discrepancies covered the period when the squadron was aboard the aircraft carrier Coral Sea in the Mediterranean Sea.
Base spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry M. Shelton said the improper procedures, discovered during a routine inspection of records, involved reports that jets were flight-ready when they weren’t.
“At no time, however, were they operating unsafe aircraft,” Shelton said.
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