Pilot of Warplane Committed Suicide in Crash, AF Probe Finds

The Air Force has concluded a pilot deliberately flew his bomb-laden warplane into a snowy peak in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains six months ago to commit suicide, a Defense Department official said Friday.

Capt. Craig Button, 32, and his A-10 Thunderbolt veered northeast into Colorado and disappeared during a routine training mission April 2 when the aircraft veered off course after taking off with two other planes from Davis-Monthan Air Force base in Arizona.

An extensive three-week search, hampered by severe weather conditions and forbidding terrain, eventually turned up wreckage on Gold Dust Peak near Vail.

The official said an Air Force report on the incident due to be released next week concluded that Button “apparently committed suicide but did not make the decision until after he was airborne.”

The official said that without other evidence such as mechanical failure or lack of oxygen causing Button to pass out, the investigating officer came to the conclusion that Button had intentionally flown his plane into the mountain.

“There was no evidence that he was depressed and there was no evidence of any medical problem such as hypoxia [lack of oxygen], no evidence of engine failure or no conclusion of intentional theft of the aircraft,” the official said.

The official said the investigating report concluded that because the A-10 had skirted other mountains and flown over other airfields, the warplane was in Button’s control and the crash was “probably not an accident.”

Although 70% of the aircraft’s munitions and almost nine tons of the 13-ton plane were recovered after 10 weeks of sifting through the wreckage, four 500-pound conventional bombs on board were not found at the crash site.

The Air Force said it was reviewing eyewitness accounts and other evidence along the plane’s path in an effort to locate the bombs.