Eyewitnesses Describe Midair Crash to Navy Panel

When two Navy antisubmarine planes collided March 21, killing all 27 crewmen, the crash lit up the night sky as bright as day, witnesses testified Wednesday at a Navy court of inquiry.

“There was a bright flash. . . .I turned and saw a fireball, oblong-shaped,” said Lt. (j.g.) William Revak, the Officer of the Deck aboard the destroyer Merrill, about 15 miles away.

“The sky lit up . . . it looked like daylight, like sunrise or sunset,” Lt. Albert Escobedo, a helicopter commander, testified before the three-man board, which will hear more than 30 witnesses testify here and at Moffett Naval Air Station in Mountain View, Calif., where the planes were based.

During the first day of the inquiry, officials watched a 17-minute radar tape as two P-3 Orions collided and disappeared from the screen. They heard witnesses in a Navy helicopter 6 miles away and aboard the San Diego-based destroyer 15 miles away describe burning embers falling into the sea. And they listened to a recording of the air-traffic controller repeatedly tell the arriving pilot that he was no longer under controllers’ jurisdiction and to use visual flight rules.

Acknowledging this order, one pilot said: “Roger.” And those were his last recorded words.

The two turboprop planes, assigned to Moffett, collided during a submarine-hunting training mission over the ocean 60 miles southwest of San Diego. Radar tapes indicate that one plane flying at about 2,500 feet climbed into the other plane, flying at about 3,500 feet.

Navy officials earlier this month told The Times that the accident, which killed more Navy personnel than in all of Operation Desert Storm, was caused by pilot error.

“For some reason, the pilot lost awareness of what was going on around him,” said an official familiar with the investigation.

The low-flying plane had been conducting the training exercise for 7 1/2 hours. The second plane--arriving after a 1 1/2- hour flight from Moffett to relieve the first--flew into the area about 10 minutes before the two collided, witnesses said. Under normal operating procedures, the two P-3 Orion planes would fly in formation, one above the other, while the first crew passed along all the mission information to the second, lower-flying plane.

During the 17-minute tape, Petty Officer 1st Class Tina Athans and another air traffic controller chatted with the arriving pilot, giving him information about the weather, telling him which frequency to use so he could communicate with the waiting P-3 pilot, and telling him to use visual flight rules, routinely used in the training area.

But minutes later, the commander of a helicopter crew radioed to Athans, telling her he believed he had just seen a mid-air collision and requesting permission to fly closer.

“Tell me, what are you observing?” she asked.

“Right now, it’s some burning objects on the surface of the water,” he replied.

“Do you see any survivors?” Athans asked.

“Negative. We have not taken as close a look as we need to,” he said. But even after a day and a half search by several ships and helicopters, no survivors were found.

During the inquiry, Athans was asked if both pilots understood they were supposed to maintain their own visual flight rules and she responded, “I believe so.”

Athans’ testimony will prove crucial to whether Navy officials rule out the possibility of air-traffic controller’s error. According to several witnesses, the weather did not appear to contribute to the crash.

“The visibility was fair. In fact, it was actually pretty good,” said Escobedo, flying in the Navy helicopter near the crash. Escobedo also explained that both P-3 planes were using their lights and were visible.

When Escobedo and his crew saw the flash from the collision, they initially thought one of the planes had dropped a flare. The sky became so light that they could see the color of the water, he said.

But when he turned the helicopter around, “I saw a shower of sparks or glowing embers falling from a point in the sky higher than us,” he said.

He immediately tried to radio both planes but got no answer. Ascending higher into the sky, Escobedo radioed to Athans and to the battle group, informing them of what he had seen. As he and his crew scoured the water for survivors, they spotted only a piece of debris that looked like a foot-long Styrofoam cylinder. “That was the biggest piece we saw,” he said.

And other witnesses agreed that wreckage from the planes seemed to disappear into the sea.

“I saw a trailing cloud of burning debris, similar to what would be left after a fireworks show and three flares,” said Lt. (j.g.) Tracy Kreckman, the helicopter pilot. “The trail reached all the way to the surface of the water.”

Before the crash, Kreckman testified that he heard the two pilots exchanging tactical information. This, too, could be important to investigators because it shows that the pilots had been in contact before the crash and that their equipment had been functioning.

Navy officials expect to hear witnesses at the North Island Naval Air Station today and Friday. A Navy court of inquiry is similar to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Serving on the inquiry court are: Vice Adm. Edwin R. Kohn, Commander Naval Air Force; Capt. Carter Nute, Deputy Commander of Carrier Task Force 12, based in the Pacific, and Capt. Tom Leonard, the reserve liaison officer for the Pacific Fleet’s Naval Air Force. These officers will send a report to the Judge Advocate General’s office in Washington, which is also investigating the crash.

“A court of inquiry is required to make findings of facts, opinions and recommendations that are appropriate,” said Cmdr. Jim Rockwell, the Navy attorney presenting evidence in the inquiry.