Witness Faults Marine Pilot’s Superiors in Cable Car Tragedy

Attorneys for Marine Corps Capt. Richard Ashby opened their defense in his court-martial Wednesday by presenting testimony that the pilot never should have been cleared for the low-level training flight last year that struck Italian cable car wires and killed 20 skiers.

Their lead-off witness, Milton Miller, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, testified that Ashby, 31, of Mission Viejo, Calif., had not flown for seven months and that his superiors should not have approved him to pilot the four-man EA-6B Prowler jet at a low altitude over the Italian Alps.

“You can be great today and not so great this afternoon,” Miller said, suggesting that Marine Corps superiors should have tested Ashby more closely before allowing him into the cockpit.

“That’s what we have the chain of command in the training ranks for,” Miller said.

The defense is hoping to show that, although Ashby performed competently, he was not professionally prepared to react to unforeseen obstructions--such as the gondola--during the Feb. 3, 1998, flight.

Ashby’s lawyers noted that flight maps did not include warnings about the gondola system and that even a highly experienced pilot could not have missed hitting the cable wires after veering the plane suddenly into the popular ski resort area.

“They were not negligent, they were not reckless and they did not intentionally go low,” chief defense lawyer Frank Spinner said at a lunchtime press conference in support of Ashby’s acquittal on 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

But, he added, “Capt. Ashby did not have the training to realize that he was faced with visual perception problems. It was a shortcoming of the Marine Corps for him not to get the adequate training.”

Military prosecutors have argued that Ashby, an eight-year Marine Corps veteran, purposely flew too low and too fast and was flying recklessly when the jet struck the cables.

If his court-martial ends in conviction, Ashby could receive more than 200 years in a military prison.

Ashby is expected to testify on his own behalf Friday or Monday, and the case is likely to go to the jury next week.

The incident strained U.S. relations with Italy and plans for a court-martial prompted an outcry from Italians who were afraid that a U.S.-based proceeding would go easy on Ashby.

Tensions are high here, and last week a Belgian man confronted Ashby with a picture of his dead daughter and accused him in her death. Dozens of Belgians, Germans and Italians have come here to monitor the proceedings.

“Capt. Ashby really deeply understands the feelings of loss,” Spinner said. “We really understand and appreciate the suffering.”