Navy Pilot Discharged in Cover-Up Rehired in Top-Secret Civilian Job

Two days after he and three other Navy fliers were discharged for trying to cover up the cause of a midair collision, former Lt. Arthur Flynn was hired by the Navy on Sept. 2 to a civilian job in charge of training a top-secret security unit, The Times has learned.

Two of the former aviators, who cannot find work in the military, claim that Flynn, 32, received special treatment because he had connections in the Navy and was the only officer involved in the incident who did not tell his story to the media.

Flynn was the flight team leader on March 17, 1985, during warfare training operations 25,000 feet above the Pacific when he motioned for the pilot of an F-14 Tomcat fighter to fly close to his aircraft so he could take some personal photographs. The two jets bumped into each other, knocking a $500,000 Phoenix missile into the ocean.

The four aviators decided to concoct a story for their squadron commanding officer to make the collision seem like an accident in the clouds. But when they returned to the aircraft carrier Constellation and learned that their conversations in the cockpit had been recorded, two of the officers--one of them Flynn--arranged to get the tape and the other threw it overboard.

Outraged by the botched cover-up attempt, Navy officials sought last year to fire the four aviators. Three of the officers went to the press in March to complain that the Navy was being too harsh, particularly since it cost $1.5 million per man to train fighter pilots.

“(Navy officials) were furious when they found out we talked to you,” former Lt. Donald Cutts told a Times reporter last week. “We were dead meat, even though we were just trying to support our own case.”

At the time, Vice Adm. James E. Service, commander of the Pacific Fleet naval air force, said the Navy had no room for the four aviators. He said the Navy expects its fighter pilots to defend the nation with honesty and integrity.

“If (a pilot) will lie to you in peacetime, certainly he’ll lie to you in war and you can’t depend on him,” Service told The Times in March. “If you don’t have that integrity in warfare, you’re in a world of trouble.”

Service said last week that he stands by his statement but to comment further on Flynn’s hiring would be inappropriate.

All four pilots were discharged from the Navy on Aug. 31, and according to a Navy spokesman in Washington the four “received the same treatment.”

But Navy commanders at Point Mugu Naval Air Station in Oxnard immediately hired Flynn as the security training administrator for the Crisis Response Team, a military SWAT unit that also provides protection for Air Force One when President Reagan visits his Santa Barbara ranch. The Crisis Response Team operations are so secret that Navy officials are reluctant to even release the names of enlisted personnel assigned to the unit.

“Flynn’s not good enough to stay in the Navy, but he’s good enough to protect the President,” Cutts said.

Flynn declined to comment on his case. A Navy source at Point Mugu said, “He just wishes the whole thing would go away.”

Navy spokesman Ray Lucasey in Point Mugu said Flynn was hired for no reason other than he was the most qualified applicant.

“Admiral Service says he did not want those individuals in his unit. That is his privilege to say so. However, after a period of time and an investigation into the circumstances . . . there may be further enlightenment and more details,” said Lucasey, a spokesman for the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu.

Lucasey could not provide any specific examples that separated Flynn from two of his colleagues who also were kicked out of the Navy but have been unable to find jobs.

“I can assure you that the command did not hire (Flynn) in the dark,” Lucasey said. “The commanding officer was well aware of all the circumstances. I’m sure they gave (the midair collision and the cover-up) very deep thought in their decision, but they have to decide . . . what’s in the best interest of the Navy and what is legal and correct under the rules.”

Even though Flynn was a fighter pilot who had little experience in security matters, Lucasey said, he had proven himself during the 11-month period leading up to his dismissal while serving temporary duty as an officer on the Crisis Response Team.

“He was far and away the best qualified,” Lucasey said. “There was absolutely no reason to disqualify him in any way.”

Lucasey said Navy officials could not estimate how many applicants competed with Flynn for the civilian position, which is currently authorized for one year and pays an annual salary of $26,500. He said the position is “closely supervised” and added that Flynn was hired two days after his discharge because it was “much better for the Navy.”

Cutts said the Navy “flatly rejected” him for a similar Navy security position in Bermuda because he did not have enough civil service experience, he said. Cutts, 33, who also has been turned down by an Army reserve unit in San Diego, said he is a Top Gun school graduate, has combat experience and served seven years in the civil service. He said Flynn has no civil service experience.

Another pilot involved in the midair collision, former Lt. Joe Grund, 31, said he also cannot find work in the Navy. Cutts and Grund said all four aviators received general discharges under honorable conditions. Their dismissal papers included a separation code that indicates they committed a serious offense. That code is preventing Cutts and Grund from being rehired, they said.

The fourth aviator, former Lt. Mark Wolf, 29, who was the radar intercept officer in Flynn’s jet, has moved to Wisconsin and could not be reached. Wolf, who held a data processing position before his discharge, has been turned down for several computer-related jobs by the Navy, Cutts said.

Cutts and Grund said they believe Flynn was rehired because his former commanding officer at Miramar Naval Air Station, Capt. R. Moon Vance, oversees the Crisis Response Team at Point Mugu.

“We call them sea daddies in the Navy,” Cutts said of Vance’s relationship with Flynn. “The guy kind of takes care of you.”

Vance is on leave and was unavailable for comment.

Lucasey said Vance is the type of administrator who gives his enlisted personnel “every opportunity to straighten out. He is extremely fair with everybody,” Lucasey said.

Flynn also benefited from choosing not to discuss his case with the press, according to Cutts and Grund.

Grund said that when he was temporarily assigned to Miramar earlier this year, an admiral welcomed him to the base and told him, “I’m glad to have the only one working for me who didn’t go to the press.”

That comment, although intended for Flynn, is indicative of the scorn the three officers received for telling their story to the media, Cutts said.

“The only difference between me and him is my name is in the newspaper and Flynn could not be reached for comment,” Cutts said. “Flynn made no bones about the fact he wouldn’t talk to (the press), and used that quite well to his advantage.”

Lucasey said that Navy officials at Point Mugu were unaware that Flynn was the only pilot who did not speak publicly about the collision.

The mishap occurred between Hawaii and the Philippines as the Constellation began a six-month deployment in the Western Pacific. The pilots were 250 miles from the carrier when they decided to perform a tricky “roll-under” maneuver to photograph the new F-14 jets, valued at $30 million apiece.

The jets were flying at a speed of about 220 knots when Flynn motioned for Grund to maneuver his Tomcat fighter within 50 feet for a photograph, said Cutts, the radar intercept operator in Grund’s jet.

The four flight officers were initially scheduled for a court-martial hearing that could have resulted in criminal convictions. But the Navy decided against filing such charges to prevent its confidential Aviation Mishap Board reports from being released in court.

The four aviators were reprimanded and fined as much as $2,000 apiece in July, 1985, by retired Adm. Sylvester Foley in Hawaii and stripped of their wings a year ago by Navy personnel officials in Washington.

Navy officials said the four were fortunate they were not sent to federal prison. They were discharged Aug. 31 because they conspired to cover up the incident, not because they bumped the planes, the Navy said.

During its investigation, the Navy uncovered three previous unsafe flying incidents involving Flynn in which no corrective action was taken, said a Navy spokesman in San Diego. The Navy has declined to provide details about the incidents.

After the midair collision, the two-man crews in each F-14 decided to tell a lie to their superiors. They agreed they would “mark it down to the right stuff . . . add some weather and take out the camera,” according to interviews conducted in March.

Back on board the Constellation, the aviators discovered that their squadron leaders had a videotape of the accident as well as an audio tape of their conversation. Cutts said that he took the videotape--while Flynn watched for cover--and later threw it overboard.

Cutts said he is particularly angry that the Navy rehired the pilot who took the photographs and suggested the cover-up.

“He was the section leader, he was the lead pilot, he was the one who took the damn pictures,” Cutts said. “He was the first one who said, ‘OK, let’s get our story straight.’ It was his idea to get rid of the tape.”

‘Flynn’s not good enough to stay in the Navy, but he’s good enough to protect the President.’

Former Lt. Donald Cutts

Discharged Navy pilot