A Few Not So Good Men: Marine Pilots a Massacre Immunity
Joseph Schweitzer
The plane was manned by Marine Capt. Richard Ashby  a 30-year-old on his final training flight before promotion to fighter pilot  and Capt.  Joseph Schweitzer   a navigator with a decade of flight experience. Capt. William Raney and Capt. Chandler Seagraves  electronic-warfare officers  were in the back seats.
During the flight   Schweitzer  borrowed Ashbyâs handheld videocamera to record  his  swan songâ his  last aerial navigation as a Marine Corps pilot before  he  left the military.  Schweitzer  testified that  he  had intended to show the video to  his  kids someday.
The plane lost contact with ground radar at 3:06 p.m. due to its low altitude  and  Schweitzer  testified that the video showed  him  smiling right up until 3:12 p.m.  when the plane hit the gondola cable.
After hitting the cable  the pilots saw the gondola fall but continued their flight. They landed the damaged Prowler safely at a NATO base in Aviano  in northern Italy. Court documents show that as Raney and Seagraves got off the plane   Schweitzer  and Ashby remained behind  took the borrowed camcorder videotape of the flight  then replaced it with a blank tape.
As  Schweitzer  and Ashby walked to the mess hall a few days after the accident  they asked Seagravesâ advice on handling questions about the videotape  according to court documents. Seagraves testified that he counseled the pilots to âget rid of the videotape. If  it  were mine  I would get rid of  it .â
Court documents show that Ashby gave  Schweitzer  the videotape  and  Schweitzer  took  it  outside behind a bar and threw  it  into a bonfire  despite âknowing that Italian and United States military criminal investigators would have wanted to view  it  â according to  his  testimony (PDF).
â Get rid of the videotape. If  it  were mine  I would get rid of  it . â â Capt. Chandler Seagraves in court testimony
Initially  all four men were charged with crimes and Ashby  who had been at the controls  faced a total of more than 200 years in a military prison.  Schweitzer  and Ashby were recommended for general court-martial at Camp Lejeune on 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide. Italian authorities did not have jurisdiction to formally charge the crew members under NATO treaty rules.
The planeâs pilot and navigator  Ashby and Schweitzer  were court-martialed again in May 1999 on charges of obstructing justice by destroying the videotape recorded during the flight. Guilty verdicts pushed Ashby and  Schweitzer  out of the Marine Corps  and Ashby served four months of a six-month term in military prison before his release on good behavior.
Ashby and  Schweitzer  maintained that they had seen neither the new directives nor the updated government maps. Seagraves and Raney testified that the altitude gauge did not trigger after the plane entered the Cermis valley  even though Ashby  the pilot  had set the indicator to go off when they dropped below 800 feet  according to the Associated Press.
The investigationâs partially redacted pages blamed the Marine pilots for the tragedy and advised the United States to take full responsibility for paying restitution to the victimsâ families  La Stampa reported. The paper added that investigators found compelling evidence refuting the crew membersâ claims regarding old maps and missed flight directives that eventually led to  Schweitzer  and Ashbyâs acquittal on the most severe charges.
The Daily Beast interviewed retired Maj. Raney and then-Capt.  Schweitzer about the La Stampa  claims. Both crew members denied having seen or read the new directives or maps marking the location of the cable-car lines.
âNo   we  absolutely did not have charts with the cables marked on them â Raney said. âThe Italians had the cables marked on their maps  but  we  did notâ¦ and there was a two-star [general] who flat out lied about it in a press conference.
âYou know  this is a situation that I like to call the unbelievable  unimaginable  unexpected moments that training just canât prepare you for â  Schweitzer  said. âI got rid of the tape  not because of the flight  but because that was my worst nightmareâ¦ I didnât want to look at my smiling face while flying a low-altitude flight  which was something I loved to doâand then all of a sudden  tragedy.â
In a 2015 email to The Daily Beast via a public-affairs spokesperson   he  wrote that the Cavalese cable-car incident has been fully investigated  but  he  also offered  his  condolences.
âI would like to extend my heartfelt sympathies to everyone affected by this tragedy â  he  wrote.
The plane was manned by Marine Capt. Richard Ashby  a 30-year-old on his final training flight before promotion to fighter pilot  and Capt.   [TGT] . Capt. William Raney and Capt. Chandler Seagraves  electronic-warfare officers  were in the back seats.
During  [TGT] borrowed Ashbyâs handheld videocamera to record  his  swan songâ his  last aerial navigation as a Marine Corps pilot before  he  left the military.  Schweitzer  testified that  he  had intended to show the video to  his  kids someday.
The plane lost contact with ground radar at 3:06 p.m. due to its low altitude  and  Schweitzer  testified that the video showed  him  smiling right up until 3:12 p.m.  when the plane hit the gondola cable.
After hitting the cable  the pilots saw the gondola fall but continued their flight. They landed the damaged Prowler safely at a NATO base in Aviano  in northern Italy. Court documents show that as Raney and Seagraves got off the plane   Schweitzer  and Ashby remained behind  took the borrowed camcorder videotape of the flight  then replaced it with a blank tape.
As  Schweitzer  and Ashby walked to the mess hall a few days after the accident  they asked Seagravesâ advice on handling questions about the videotape  according to court documents. Seagraves testified that he counseled the pilots to âget rid of the videotape. If  [TGT]  [TGT]   were mine  I would get rid of  it .â
Court documents show that Ashby gave  Schweitzer  the videotape  and  Schweitzer  took   [TGT]   outside behind a bar and threw   [TGT]   into a bonfire  despite âknowing that Italian and United States military criminal investigators would have wanted to view  it  â according to  his  testimony (PDF).
â Get rid of the videotape. If  [TGT]  [TGT]   were mine  I would get rid of   [TGT]  . â â Capt. Chandler Seagraves in court testimony
Initially  all four men were charged with crimes and Ashby  who had been at the controls  faced a total of more than 200 years in a military prison.  Schweitzer  and Ashby were recommended for general court-martial at Camp Lejeune on 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide. Italian authorities did not have jurisdiction to formally charge the crew members under NATO treaty rules.
The planeâs pilot and navigator  Ashby and Schweitzer  were court-martialed again in May 1999 on charges of obstructing justice by destroying the videotape recorded during the flight. Guilty verdicts pushed Ashby and  Schweitzer  out of the Marine Corps  and Ashby served four months of a six-month term in military prison before his release on good behavior.
Ashby and  Schweitzer  maintained that they had seen neither the new directives nor the updated government maps. Seagraves and Raney testified that the altitude gauge did not trigger after the plane entered the Cermis valley  even though Ashby  the pilot  had set the indicator to go off when they dropped below 800 feet  according to the Associated Press.
The investigationâs partially redacted pages blamed the Marine pilots for the tragedy and advised the United States to take full responsibility for paying restitution to the victimsâ families  La Stampa reported. The paper added that investigators found compelling evidence refuting the crew membersâ claims regarding old maps and missed flight directives that eventually led to  Schweitzer  and Ashbyâs acquittal on the most severe charges.
The Daily Beast interviewed retired Maj. Raney and then-Capt.  Schweitzer about the La Stampa  claims. Both crew members denied having seen or read the new directives or maps marking the location of the cable-car lines.
âNo   we  absolutely did not have charts with the cables marked on them â Raney said. âThe Italians had the cables marked on their maps  but  we  did notâ¦ and there was a two-star [general] who flat out lied about it in a press conference.
âYou know  this is a situation that I like to call the unbelievable  unimaginable  unexpected moments that training just canât prepare you for â  Schweitzer  said. âI got rid of the tape  not because of the flight  but because that was my worst nightmareâ¦ I didnât want to look at my smiling face while flying a low-altitude flight  which was something I loved to doâand then all of a sudden  tragedy.â
In a 2015 email to The Daily Beast via a public-affairs spokesperson   he  wrote that the Cavalese cable-car incident has been fully investigated  but  he  also offered  his  condolences.
âI would like to extend my heartfelt sympathies to everyone affected by this tragedy â  he  wrote.