A US marines investigation has concluded that pilot error caused the cable-car accident that killed 20 people at a ski resort in the Italian Dolomites earlier this month, according to a report this week on the US television network, NBC.
Sources close to the investigation have allegedly told NBC that pilot error, rather than mechanical failure, provoked the February 3rd accident at Mount Cermis, near Cavalese.
The accident occurred during a routine training mission when a low-flying US EA-6B Prowler jet snapped cable-car lines on a skilift in the Mount Cermis valley, plunging 20 ski-lift passengers 350 feet to their deaths. After snapping the ski-lift cable, the jet managed to stay airborne, limping back to its nearby US airbase in Aviano, despite leaking fuel and hydraulic fluid.
NBC's report confirms media leaks from Italian and US military investigators last week which alleged that not only was the Prowler jet flying far below its authorised minimum altitude but also that it had deviated from its authorised flight plan. Furthermore, the pilot, Capt Richard Ashby, had been equipped with US military maps which did not show the Mount Cermis ski-lift.
The latter oversight seems all the more tragically absurd, given that the ski-lift is clearly marked on ordinary road maps of Trentino.
According to NBC, the US Marines investigation has concluded that the aircraft was flying through the mountains at around 500 m.p.h., at an altitude of less than 400 feet, 1,600 feet below the minimum permitted level for that region. The NBC report also claimed that the investigators had based their findings on information from the aircraft's mission data recorder and from an air force AWACS radar plane that tracked the fatal flight from overhead.
Although both the US military and Italian civil investigations seem likely to last for several months longer, initial revelations from the Italian inquiry last week prompted the Justice Minister, Mr Giovanni Maria Flick, to call on US authorities to hand over the four-man Prowler crew with a view to possible indictment on charges of multiple manslaughter.
Although US military sources have indicated they would seriously consider such a request, under NATO's 1951 Status of Forces Agreement NATO members are not required to surrender jurisdiction in inquiries involving the carrying out of official duties. All four crew members are believed to have so far refused to tell investigators, under threat of criminal charges, why they were flying so low.
Mr Flick last week based his request for jurisdiction on public concern, a concern increased by allegations from Dolomites inhabitants and local politicians that US jet pilots have for long behaved in a reckless manner.