Marine jet rustled trees before slicing cable

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- A Marine jet rustled tree tops as it swooped over an Italian valley with a roar moments before it struck a ski gondola cable, sending 20 people to their deaths, witnesses testified.

"It was almost at the top of the trees," 16-year-old Andrea Mover of San Michele all'Adige, Italy, testified Wednesday at Capt. Richard Ashby's court-martial. "Just as the plane passed by the tops of the two trees, I saw the tops moving."Ashby, 31, of Mission Viejo, Calif., is charged with 20 counts of involuntary manslaughter, destroying government and private property and dereliction of duty. If convicted on all charges, he faces more than 200 years in prison.

Ashby was piloting the EA-6B Prowler on Feb. 3, 1998, when it sliced the cable over the Italian village of Cavalese.

Mover testified that his home is on a route commonly used by military planes but that Ashby's jet was "much lower than they usually go." He said he watched the jet from a window in his home.

Prosecutors contend Ashby was negligently flying too fast and too low -- in violation of an altitude restriction of 1,000 feet. The cable was hit at about 360 feet.

Defense lawyers say Ashby will tell the jury his map didn't have the ski gondola marked on it and that his jet's radar altimeter -- which measures flying altitude -- was faulty.

Mario Bleggi, a surveyor working near a mountain ridge near Chivo, Italy, testified that he heard the Prowler before he saw it. Bleggi, of Trento, Italy, also told jurors he watched the jet make a clockwise rotation, allowing him to see the belly of the jet.

Also Wednesday, maintenance officer Lt. Col. Gary Eugene Slyman and Capt. Scott Roys testified that the jet's radar altimeter had malfunctioned on two earlier flights but was fixed.

And Chief Warrant Officer Jeffrey Poncelet said his analysis of tapes from the Prowler showed the jet had exceeded its 517-mph speed limit during 89 percent of the ill-fated flight.

The Prowler's navigator, Capt. Joseph Schweitzer, 31, of Westbury, N.Y., is awaiting trial next month for the deaths.