4 messages.-----------Johnnie
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>From: Sue Haffner <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Maps implicated in ski lift disaster
>Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:24:44 -0800 (PST)
Debra Natsios posted the New York Times story regarding
the Italian ski lift disaster caused by a U.S. military
plane hitting the cable.
The story, as it appeared in my local paper, indicated that
the military were using a TPC. This made me check our TPC's
to see how the area appears.
According to the 1956 US Board on Geographic Names gazetteer,
the coordinates should be 46 17 N and 11 27 E. This area is
on TPC F-2B (I'm working from memory here, but I think it's
the one). A lot of aerial cables are indicated in the mts.
there, but I wasn't able to find the town, Cavalese, and
the mountain, Cermis, isn't in the gazetteer.
I haven't had time to plow through our 1:250,000 Italy topos.
Has anyone else checked out this location?
Sue Haffner
Map Library
CSU Fresno
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>Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 19:06:21 -0500 (EST)
>From: [log in to unmask] (Tom Hanley)
>Subject: Re: maps implicated in ski lift disaster
So, no one's to blame? Hadn't there been complaints from previous flights?
Do pilots get a wild hair up and do low level flying on the whim of the
moment? Didn't pilots talk to each other? Sounds to me like poor
judgement and lack of oversight rather than the maps are the main culprit
here.
Tom Hanley, Professor of Geology
Department of Chemistry and Geology
Columbus State University
4225 University Avenue
Columbus, GA 31907-5645
Phone - 706-568-2074; FAX 706-569-3133
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>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 08:15:13 -0500
>From: Stephen Baig <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: maps implicated in ski lift disaster
Regardless of the stupid attempt by NY Times et al. to shift the blame from
the aircrew the stunt known a "flat-hatting" is privately well known if
publically poorly acknowledged amongst armed services aviators of all
countries.
At 04:01 PM 18-02-98 EST, you wrote:
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Excerpted from The New York Times
> Wednesday, February 18, 1998
> Pp A1, A6
>
> How Wayward U.S. Pilot Killed 20 on Ski Lift
> By John Tagliabue with Matthew L. Wald
>
> "...the pilot of the EA-6B Prowler did not have Italian
> military charts provided to his commanders that marked
> the ski lift, which is also clearly noted on road maps.
>
> Instead the Pentagon, whose policy is not to use maps
> made by foreign countries, had given the crew an American
> military chart that did not show the ski-lift cable,
> which was built 31 years ago from Cavalese, on the valley
> floor, south to the top of Mount Cermis.
>
> .....
>
> The Marines will not explain why the Italian charts with
> the ski lift it were not used. American military flights
> generally use American maps, mostly because Pentagon
> officials trust American map-makers more than the
> agencies that draw local maps. Italian officials say that
> they give Italian charts to NATO officials but that they
> are poorly distributed.
>
> Defense Department officials in Washington said that at
> least two American military maps of the region do not
> include the ski lift because its towers are too low. The
> tallest towers on the lift rise only 65 feet, and
> obstacles need not be shown unless they reach
> approximately 100 feet, said Mark E. Shultz, associate
> director for geospatial imagery at the National Imagery and
> Mapping Agency. The maps cover towers, not cables, he
> said, despite the fact that the cables at Cavalese are
> more than 100 feet above the ground.
>
> "Without putting surveyors on the ground to look at
> features like that, we would have no way of knowing what
> the height was," he said.
>
> -------------------------
>
>
Stephen Baig
Oceanographer,
TPC/National Hurricane Center
Miami, FL
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