Trial Begins for Pilot Accused in 20 Ski-Lift Deaths

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. â€”  A Marine pilot was hot-dogging when his jet sliced through a ski gondola cable in the Italian Alps, killing 20 people, a prosecutor said in opening statements Monday at the aviator’s court-martial.

In addition to flying his radar-jamming plane too low and too fast “whenever he had the opportunity� that day, Capt. Richard Ashby broke regulations by putting the aircraft through a barrel roll, Lt. Col. Carol Joyce said.

Ashby is charged with 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter and other offenses. He could be sentenced to more than 200 years in prison.

Ashby, 31, of Mission Viejo, Calif., was at the controls of an EA-6B Prowler on Feb. 3, 1998, when its wing cut the cable. The gondola plummeted to the ground.

“Whenever he had the opportunity to fly too low and too fast, he did it,� Joyce said.

The Marine Corps had banned flights below 1,000 feet in Italy after a 1996 accident, Joyce said. The cable that Ashby’s jet struck was 370 feet above the ground.

In addition, the prosecutor said, one of the two back-seat officers in the jet will testify that Ashby performed a 360-degree barrel roll as the jet swooped through a mountain valley.

A jet loses altitude fast during such a roll, the first prosecution witness testified later.

“At low altitude . . . it becomes very dangerous,� said Maj. David Wilkinson, an aircraft weapons system officer from Marine Corps headquarters.

Ashby’s attorney, Capt. Jon Shelburne, told the jury in his opening statement: “It was just an accident. It was an accident waiting to happen.�

The pilot’s lawyers have said that he didn’t know the cable was there because it wasn’t on the map he was issued, and that an optical illusion may have made him think he was flying higher than he was.