Prosecution Witness Calls Pilot ‘Outstanding’

Called as one of the government’s chief witnesses, a Marine Corps flight technician Tuesday testified surprisingly that Capt. Richard Ashby was not a careless, hot-dog pilot at the time that his jet hit a cable car wire in an international tragedy that killed 20 skiers in Italy last year.

The long-anticipated testimony of Capt. William L. Raney II, who flew with Ashby on the training flight in Europe, came on the last day of the government’s case in a three-week court-martial of the Mission Viejo pilot. If convicted, Ashby could be sentenced to as much as 200 years in a military prison.

Today, Ashby’s legal defense team will present its case. Signaling that they think the trial is going well, his lawyers indicated that they may call as few as three witnesses, including the 31-year-old defendant, who grew up in the shadow of El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County and dreamed of flying military jets.

The U.S. government has been under immense pressure from Italian officials and relatives of the dead skiers for a stiff punishment. Area residents have said that U.S. planes flying under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization banner often scream recklessly fast and low across the scenic mountainsides frequented by tourists and vacationers.

Raney’s testimony, although discounted in part by two later witnesses, appeared to bolster the defense.

“I think he’s an outstanding pilot,” Raney said of Ashby.

As for allegations that the eight-year Marine Corps veteran liked to “flat-hat”--military slang for performing aerobatics--Raney responded sharply: “When we get into that cockpit--and if he’s going to do something unsafe, he’s going to kill me too. I certainly don’t want that to happen.”

Pressed further, he added: “If at any point I thought we were going out to flat-hat, I would have put a stop to the flight.”

But other government witnesses have testified that Ashby, in the pilot’s seat of an EA-6B Prowler jet, hit the cable wires at about 370 feet, well below the prescribed minimum flying level of 1,000 feet.

In addition, they demonstrated that Ashby roared past the ski chalet area at airspeeds greater than the 483 mph set out in the flight plan.

Lt. Col. James Brubaker, an aviation expert and training instructor for the Prowler, testified that he was disturbed that Ashby was even permitted to make the flight run.

“My opinion is that this [flight] was flown exceedingly fast and that it was flown at an altitude lower than that which they had originally intended on flying it,” Brubaker said.

On Monday, Bernard Coogan, a former Vietnam War-era pilot who now works in private practice as an air crash investigator from Wentzville, N.C., told the court he had determined that Ashby acted irresponsibly during the Feb. 3, 1998, flight.

“In my opinion he was careless in many aspects of this flight and in preparing for this flight,” Coogan testified.

“Overall, the flight was unreasonable. The crew was reckless. There was no need to be down in that valley that low at that kind of speed.”

The popular Cavalese Valley, where the accident occurred, has since been nicknamed “mishap valley” by the Marines.

Ashby, in an interview with The Times last spring, denied that he flew like a “cowboy” and noted that his flight maps did not include markings for the cable car system. He also expressed deep regret for the loss of life.

He is charged with 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter, one count each of damaging the plane and the gondola system and one count of dereliction of duty.

He also faces a second court-martial after this trial for obstruction of justice because he allegedly tried to conceal an amateur videotape made inside the cockpit during the flight.

His co-pilot, Capt. Joseph P. Schweitzer, 31, of Westbury, N.Y., has been charged with the same crimes. He is to be court-martialed after a verdict in the Ashby case.

The two back-seaters on the fatal flight--Raney, 27, of Englewood, Colo., and Capt. Chandler P. Seagraves, 29, of Nineveh, Ind.--originally were charged in the case. But those charges later were dropped and the men were given immunity from prosecution in return for their cooperation with the government in winning convictions against Ashby and Schweitzer.

When Seagraves testified last week as a government witness, he was somewhat complimentary of Ashby’s piloting skills. But Raney took that approach much further Tuesday with his glowing descriptions of Ashby’s performance in preparing the flight and during the flight.

Raney also said that he could not remember certain key events in the planning of the training mission, particularly when the government asked if some matters were overlooked or ignored. But he was followed to the witness chair by two Marine supervisors who said they found it absurd that Raney could not remember such things.

Raney testified that early in the flight Ashby performed a “flap-around roll” in which the aircraft made a 360-degree roll. But, he added, “that was the only one that I recall.”

At another point, he said, the plane drifted off its route line and “Capt. Schweitzer noted we were flying the wrong valley and had to move one valley over.”

Then, Raney said, “we went over a ridge line . . . and the aircraft was into a bank, going very sharp down. He [Ashby] obviously was trying to miss something. It was in a turn. It felt like he just stopped the stick. It was a very jerky, abrupt maneuver. It was just before the impact. And as soon as we had the impact, Capt. Schweitzer yelled out: ‘Climb! Climb! Climb!’ ”

Raney believed they had hit a bird. But then he saw two large gashes in the right wing.

“I believe Capt. Schweitzer said, ‘We might have hit a cable,’ ” Raney said. “He said he hoped nobody on the ground was hurt because he thought he saw flashes.”

He added that Ashby also thought the plane had hit a cable because “he saw a flashing yellow.”

The crew members alerted the American air base at Aviano, Italy, that they were returning for an emergency landing. They were met by military firefighters and Raney later learned that he had broken his heel in the impact.

On the ground the Marines also learned that their flight, dubbed “Easy 01,” had clipped the cable wires and sent 20 skiers inside one gondola plunging to their deaths.

The crash caused an international incident and spurred European demands for U.S. and NATO forces to leave Italy.

Throughout the court-martial, groups of relatives and friends from Italy, Germany and Belgium have come to Camp Lejeune to follow the case. The Marines have set them up in separate rooms where they watch the proceedings on a television monitor and with the assistance of translators.

Because of a change in the rotation of witnesses, six defense witnesses testified out of order last week. They were fellow squad members who said that they were unaware of strict altitude and speed limits for low-level flights.

One witness, Navy Lt. Val M. Curran, a flight surgeon, said he was concerned with potential psychological problems for the crew.