Marine Says He Burned Tape to Keep It Off TV

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A Marine aviator said Thursday that he burned the videotape he shot before his military jet sheared lift cables at an Alpine ski village, killing 20 people, to keep it off Italian television, but he called the destruction of the tape “a big mistake.”

Capt. Joseph Schweitzer, 31, said he also feared that Italian authorities would misconstrue textbook low-altitude maneuvers as reckless flying and that the media would combine a shot of him smiling into the camera with footage of the carnage.

“I could see the crushed gondola and all the blood--once, a day or two afterward, in a church, all the coffins lined up in a row. All I could think about was my face superimposed in the snow. I couldn’t live with that,” he said.

But Schweitzer, the jet’s navigator, also said: “I wish I had left it there. The videotape didn’t have anything to do with the mishap.”

Schweitzer could receive up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges Monday. He told the judge that he threw the videotape into a bonfire.

A nine-member military jury is hearing testimony before recommending a sentence.

The defense rested its case after Schweitzer’s testimony. Court was to resume today with closing arguments.

The Marine EA-6B Prowler was on a low-level training flight near Cavalese, Italy, on Feb. 3, 1998, when it severed the ski gondola cable, sending it hurtling 370 feet to the ground and killing everyone aboard. The jet limped back to the air base at Aviano, Italy.

“What I pleaded to was a big mistake, a big mistake,” said Schweitzer, of Westbury, N.Y. “I will live with it the rest of my life. It doesn’t change my core. I’m taking responsibility for that today.”

A back-seat crewman testified earlier Thursday that he advised Schweitzer and the jet’s pilot, Capt. Richard Ashby, to destroy the videotape because he felt abandoned by higher-ups and was concerned about the hostility of the Italian news media.

Ashby, 32, of Mission Viejo, Calif., was acquitted last month by a separate jury of manslaughter charges. He still faces trial on obstruction charges.