Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Reassigned Officer Eulogizes Helicopter Crew

Marine Lt. Col. Samuel J. Ware, whose Tustin squadron had suffered most of the crashes of the controversial Super Stallion helicopters, eulogized the latest five Marines to die in the craft. Theirs had fallen onto the desert floor beside the Salton Sea during routine training maneuvers the previous week.

The crash had cost the Marines “some pretty special men,” he said during memorial services at the Marine base in Tustin.

They had been devoted to family, friends, flying and the Marine Corps, he said. Each was “our Marine.”

Ware’s words came only a day after his commander’s, which were much less complimentary.

In a formal statement prepared for news media, a base spokeswoman said that Ware was relieved of his squadron command “due to a loss of confidence by Maj. Gen. John I. Hudson, commanding general, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

Ware, who commanded the Heavy Marine Helicopter Squadron 465 since May 21, 1985, has been reassigned to the Marine Aircraft Group 16 safety office in Tustin.”

Ware, approached at a reception after the memorial service, begged off answering questions about his reassignment. “I’d just rather not comment about that,” he said and walked away.

Nor was Hudson available for comment.

But the families of the crash victims were eager to speak.

“Now that the shock is wearing off, we’re getting mad,” said George Reilly, father of the helicopter’s co-pilot, 1st Lt. Michael T. Reilly. “I think it’s a goddamned shame that Sikorsky (the craft’s manufacturer) is using the Marine Corps as test pilots for their helicopters.”

And Kathy Reilly, the lieutenant’s sister, rebuked Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) for his remark in an interview that preliminary investigation showed no evidence of mechanical problems.

“If it’s not mechanical, then it’s human error,” Badham had said. (A Marine Corps spokeswoman said the crash investigation had not yet been completed.)

Badham is “too outspoken for his own good,” Kathy Reilly said. “Doesn’t he take into consideration the feelings of the loved ones? It’s like they were just an object that’s gone now. I wouldn’t want it to happen to him, but maybe if it did he could relate.”

A string of Super Stallion crashes has prompted criticism of the craft’s design. Most of the Super Stallions that have crashed had been assigned to Squadron 465.

Wiley A. Aiken, an attorney for the victim’s survivors, said the Marine Corps may be making Ware “a scapegoat for design failures” and that Ware’s reassignment may be “a face-saving device.”