Pay Up in Gondola Tragedy

The Marine Corps jury that acquitted Capt. Richard J. Ashby of involuntary homicide and manslaughter in the deaths of 20 skiers in Italy last year also found that no negligence had taken place. But of course there was negligence. Without gross carelessness there would have been no tragedy. The trial evidence showed that Ashby’s EA-6B Prowler was flying too fast and too low and that he did not know a gondola cable traversed the canyon he was flying through.

This combination was not the product of blind fate. Human and mechanical failures were responsible. Trial testimony indicated that the plane’s radar altimeter, which measures distance from the ground, may not have been working properly, leaving the crew ignorant of how low the jet was. Testimony also showed that the rules governing flights from the Aviano air base in Italy were widely misunderstood by flying crews. Perhaps least explicable of all, flight maps failed to show that a gondola cable spanned the valley about 370 feet above the ground. A score of victims fell to their deaths when Ashby’s plane cut that cable on Feb. 3, 1998.

Responsibility for the disaster rests ultimately with the U.S. government, as President Clinton has acknowledged. But the Pentagon has so far been remarkably insensitive to the anguish of the victims’ families, providing each with $5,000 to help cover burial and travel costs but otherwise offering no reasonable compensation. That is wrong. The accident happened because a U.S. military plane was flying where it should not have been. For that, prompt and fair compensation is due the victims’ families. Further foot-dragging on this obligation demeans American honor.