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AIR FORCE SHAKEDOWN
MAY 30, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
The Air Force dismissed the top three officers of the Air Force's 86th Airlift Wing after investigating the plane crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Elizabeth Farnsworth talks to a military expert about the investigation and the meaning of the Air Force's swift action.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Forced to step down were the Wing's commander, vice commander, and operations group commander. The Air Force said the investigation of the plane crash that killed Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, his delegation, and crew is nearly completed and could be made public as early as next week. Sec. Brown had been on a post war development mission to the former
Yugoslavia when his plane plowed into a mountain top outside Dubrovnik, Croatia, on April 3rd. The plane was en route from Tuzla to Dubrovnik in fog and rain when it flew off course and into the mountain. The Dubrovnik Airport where it was supposed to land has been without its instrument landing system since it was stolen by Serb forces in 1991. The CT-43 also lacked the flight data and cockpit voice recorders required on civilian airlines, and that lack has hampered the investigation.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For more, we go to David Silverberg. He is editor at large of "Armed Forces Journal International," and independent journal on defense and military subjects. Thanks for being with us.
DAVID SILVERBERG: My pleasure.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's start with the 86th Airlift Wing. Tell us about it.
MR. SILVERBERG: Okay. That's a unit that carries cargo, personnel, handles all forms of lift, and that's--it's a transport unit.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Large?
MR. SILVERBERG: Large and with very high operations tempo. It's handling all the stuff for the Bosnian deployment. And it has a lot of responsibility. It works out of Ramstein, a big unit.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Three officers are relieved of their command.
MR. SILVERBERG: Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is this unusual?
MR. SILVERBERG: Yes, it is. Not only is it unusual but the way it was done was very unusual. It was very abrupt. They didn't wait for this comprehensive report to be issued, and they were relieved because the commander had lost confidence in them, which is certainly the end of their careers at the very least. And it, uh, means that he no longer felt that they could carry out the duties of this very, very large command.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And tell us a little about them, the, the senior officer, for example. He wasn't just running this airlift wing. He was doing more than that, right?
MR. SILVERBERG: Not only--that's correct--not only was he running the 86th Airlift Wing, he was also, in effect, the mayor, the commander of a--the largest American community outside the United States, uh, 49,000 American citizens. So--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: By virtue of being the commander of this wing.
MR. SILVERBERG: Right. Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: These are people that are with the military in Germany.
MR. SILVERBERG: Right. And he was in charge of that. So this is-- this is a major move, certainly, in Germany.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Let's back up a minute. You say that this is unusual. They did this--
MR. SILVERBERG: Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --before the report.
MR. SILVERBERG: Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What does it say to you? What do you think it means?
MR. SILVERBERG: It's very interesting because under ordinary circumstances what you expect is first they would issue this report and we would have all the details of the crash, it would have all the details of what led up to that crash, and perhaps if the top commander, major general, felt that this man shouldn't be in charge, he would put him on leave or send him away on vacation, let him lie low for a while, uh, and he wouldn't summarily dismiss him. But apparently the major general was brief on Monday and by Thursday, he felt that this man could no longer stay in command, and he was summarily relieved. And then they announced it, and they announced it before this report was briefed, and we're all waiting on this report for the details of the crash and the circumstances that led up to it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But what do you think this tells about that? What does it say?
MR. SILVERBERG: I think it would be wrong to look for personal responsibility for the crash, itself. What is--what I understand and what I'm hearing is that it says a lot more about how this unit is run. Now, my understanding is that one of the chief missions of this unit, that this--the--General Stevens (Brigadier General William Stevens) was given- -was he had to go out to these Eastern European airfields and survey them and make sure that they were safe for American aircraft to land in. And that involved an awful lot. That involved navigation aids, it involves making sure the runways are safe, make sure, you know, all the lights function, the whole gamut. And the Eastern European airports are very, very bad at this. And apparently in the course of all his other duties, this got put on the bottom. So when this airplane tried to land at Dubrovnik, (a) lacking the equipment on the airplane, and (b) at an airport, which is extremely dangerous even for Croatian pilots. This said a lot more about the unit and its functioning and its ability to carry out his mission than it did about the crash, itself.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is there likely to be complaints that this is scapegoating? I know in the past when individuals have been blamed for this sort of thing. They've said these were systemic problems. I mean, here you had an airplane that didn't have the right equipment, it didn't even--the, the little beeper that's supposed to beep after a crash wasn't working--
MR. SILVERBERG: Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --it didn't have the boxes. I mean, this is beyond--this seems to be systemic, perhaps even due to--
MR. SILVERBERG: Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: --cuts in budgets?
MR. SILVERBERG: There are cuts in budgets. They--remember, the top manager of this unit has been fired so that says that there's something systemically wrong in the unit, or they felt that there was something systemically wrong in the unit, but also the unit, itself, has, I understand, taken a 30 percent cut in its funding at a time when it is having tremendous demands put on it, very high operational tempo that people are tired and basically overworked, and ultimately this is the beginning of the chain that led to the crash of Ron Brown's plane, and I'm sure that these three heads are only the first of many that are going to roll, especially after this report is released.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Some have said that the flight lacked the equipment because the Air Force sees itself as, as a war fighting operation, not as a, as a ferrying operation, that--the ferrying dignitaries around was so secondary. Do you think that was part of it?
MR. SILVERBERG: That may have been. That sounds like a good theory. Obviously, they're responsible for the safety of these VIP's that they have to fly around. There's some question whether the Air Force should even be in charge of that. The Air Force tends to upgrade its equipment as new equipment becomes available but, you know, the funding isn't there, upgrades sometimes take a back seat. All this, I think, is going to come out in the report. But pretty clearly, he didn't do something he was supposed to be doing, and they couldn't tolerate him staying on another day, so they, these three gentlemen were dismissed.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, David Silverberg, thanks for being with us.
MR. SILVERBERG: My pleasure.
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