16 Officers Punished in Brown Plane Crash

WASHINGTON —  The Air Force announced Tuesday that it has meted out punishments to 16 officers, including formal reprimands to a general and a colonel, for dereliction of duty in connection with the April 3 plane crash in Croatia that killed Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown.

The move, ordered by Gen. Michael Ryan, commander of U.S. air forces in Europe, followed preliminary steps in May in which the two senior officers and another colonel were relieved of command in the wake of the accident in which Brown and 34 others died.

The unusual public announcement was part of an effort by Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, the Air Force chief of staff, to hold officers publicly accountable for actions that involve negligence. Such punishments usually are kept confidential under privacy laws.

An accompanying statement said that despite the usual privacy concerns, the Air Force was releasing the names of the four most-senior officers involved “in light of the substantial public interest.”

Defense analysts said the reprimands were likely to end any prospect that any of the four men would be promoted further or would be given a major command.

The crash occurred after the pilots of the Air Force CT-43 transport in which Brown and his entourage were flying mistook their position and plunged into a mountainside near the airport in Dubrovnik. The plane is the military version of the Boeing 737 jetliner.

A two-month investigation concluded that the crash stemmed from two primary causes--mistakes made by the pilots in guiding the plane to the landing field and the failure of the transport unit’s commanders to inspect the airport to make sure that it was properly equipped.

Fogleman said at the time that apart from the tragedy itself, what concerned him most was that commanders of the transport unit had not followed orders to check out the airport. Such a review almost certainly would have led to a ban on instrument landings, he said.

Brown was on a mission designed to persuade U.S. businesses to invest in the war-torn economy of Bosnia-Herzegovina after the signing of the Dayton, Ohio, peace accord. He was accompanied by his staff and by executives of several U.S. corporations.

The reprimands issued to the two senior officers, Brig. Gen. William E. Stevens and Col. John E. Mazurowski, were considered especially severe. The actions result from so-called nonjudicial punishment, which involves a formal hearing one step below a court-martial.

Stevens, former commander of the 86th Airlift Wing, and Mazurowski, former commander of the 86th Operations Group, were punished for failing to ensure that civilian airports were properly certified before allowing Air Force pilots to attempt instrument landings at them.

Two other officers--Maj. Gen. Jeffrey G. Cliver, former director of Air Force operations in Europe, and Col. Roger W. Hansen, former vice commander of the 86th Airlift Wing, each received less-stringent punishment in the form of a “letter of reprimand.”

Cliver was cited for having failed to ensure that Air Force units in Europe were complying with Pentagon directives concerning inspection of airports there, and Hansen was reprimanded for failing to see that airports used by his unit’s planes were properly equipped. Stevens, Hansen and Mazurowski were relieved of their posts last May.

The Air Force also meted out less-serious punishments to 12 other officers: Four colonels and two lieutenant colonels received letters of admonishment; two lieutenant colonels and two majors received letters of counseling; and two lieutenant colonels received verbal counseling.

The service declined to make their names public, contending that it hoped the action would “allow the officers who received lesser sanctions the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.”

The Air Force’s action stood in marked contrast to the initial handling of an accident two years ago in which two F-15 fighters mistakenly shot down a pair of Army Blackhawk helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 26 Americans and foreign officials.

Five senior officers initially were charged after the incident, but only one--Air Force Capt. James Wang--was court-martialed. He was acquitted, prompting critics to complain that the Air Force was whitewashing the incident.

Fogleman, then new on the job, stepped in and ordered that seven of the Air Force officers involved be given adverse letters of evaluation, which effectively ended their careers.