U.S. Official Report
In a formal investigation report redacted on March 10, 1998, and signed by General Peter Pace, the U.S. Marine Corps agreed with the results of the Italian officers. The investigation was led by General Michael DeLong, along with Italian Colonels Orfeo Durigon and Fermo Missarino. The document was kept secret until the Italian newspaper La Stampa legally obtained a copy from the United States archives and published it on July 13, 2011.
The Marine aircrew was determined to be flying too low and too fast, putting themselves and others at risk. The investigation team suggested that disciplinary measures against the flight crew and commanding officers should be taken, that the United States had to bear the full blame for what happened, and that victims' relatives were entitled to receive a monetary settlement.
The commission found that the squadron was deployed at Aviano on August 27, 1997, before the publishing of new directives by the Italian government forbidding flight below 2,000 feet (610 m) in Trentino Alto Adige. All the squadron's pilots received a copy of the directive. The letter was later found, unopened, in the cockpit of the EA-6B along with maps marking the cable car ropes.
In the report, the pilots are said to be usually well-behaved and sane, without any previous case of drug abuse or psychological stress. Nevertheless, on January 24, they received a formal warning for flying too low after a training take-off.
On February 2, Schweitzer planned the flight route for a low altitude training mission using obsolete documents. It was proved that the squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Muegge, and his assistants, Captains Roys, Recce, Watton, and Caramanian, did not alert the navigator about the new flight altitude limitations, maybe because the proposed flight had a lower ceiling of 1,000 feet (300 m), enough to be safe with any cable in the area. The report included an interview with the commander of 31st Fighter Wing, who stated that Muegge confessed to him that he and his crew except Ashby were aware of the current flight limitations. After approving the report, Pace suggested disciplinary measures be taken against the commanders, too.
On the morning of the disaster, the plane underwent maintenance due to a fault in the "G meter", which measures g-forces, and was replaced. The radar altimeter was checked and reported in normal condition. After the disaster, Ashby reported the radar altimeter did not alert, but this is disputed and highly unlikely. At the time of the disaster, the radar altimeter was set at 800 feet (240 m), but the plane was flying at less than 400 feet (120 m).
Ashby was qualified for low-altitude flight, but his last training mission of that kind was flown over six months before, on July 3. The report includes flight tracing from a nearby AWACS airplane. The document reports a camcorder aboard the flight, but it was blank after Schweitzer had taken the original cassette and burned it afterwards.
Read more about this topic: Cavalese Cable Car Disaster (1998)
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