A former Air Drive engineer who was charged with making false statements and obstructing justice throughout a felony investigation right into a 2017 navy airplane crash in Mississippi that killed 16 service members was acquitted Thursday.
James Michael Fisher, a former Robins Air Drive base worker, was discovered not responsible on all prices at trial final week, in response to courtroom data. The 2017 Marine Corps Reserve airplane crash killed 15 Marines and one Navy corpsman.
Fisher, a C-130 propulsion engineer on the Georgia base’s Warner Robins Logistic Middle on the time of the crash, was arrested in July 2024 for allegedly knowingly concealing paperwork from felony investigators and making false statements about his previous engineering selections, in response to a 2024 Division of Justice assertion.
Fisher was charged with two false statements and two obstruction of justice prices, and if convicted, he would have confronted as much as 20 years in jail, in response to the division’s launch.
On July 10, 2017, the KC-130 transport airplane with the decision signal “Yanky 72” crashed close to Itta Bena, Mississippi. The investigation into the crash revealed that it was brought on by a deteriorating propeller blade that was corroded when it went to an Air Drive upkeep depot in 2011, however staff uncared for to repair the propeller and as an alternative despatched it again unrepaired.
The Air Drive maintains C-130 propeller blades for the Navy, and the service’s neglect let the corrosion flip right into a crack that brought about the propeller to shoot into the plane’s aspect and break the airplane into three items, the investigation found, killing all on board.
The investigation, performed by the Marine Corps, additionally discovered that the Navy didn’t be certain that the work performed by the Air Drive was correctly accomplished. The report stated that inadequate blades had been despatched to plane for the Navy and Marine Corps for a few years.
The crash resulted within the grounding of the growing older Marine Corps Forces Reserve KC-130 plane and the Navy’s C-130 plane.
DOJ claimed that Fisher “engaged in a sample of conduct meant to keep away from scrutiny for his previous engineering selections associated to why the crash might have occurred.”
Fisher was the C-130 lead propulsion engineer at Robins Air Drive Base from 2011 to 2022, so he was tasked with helping federal brokers in the course of the investigation with data on the inspection procedures throughout 2011, when the propeller blade was despatched to the depot, in response to the indictment.
The indictment claimed that Fisher withheld paperwork that confirmed he eliminated a vital inspection process. The indictment claimed that in August 2011, a upkeep technician supervisor emailed Fisher requesting the penetrant requirement for C-130 propellor blade taper bores be eliminated, and Fisher responded approving the request.
After that date, the penetrant inspections for Air Drive and Navy propeller taper bores had been not used, per the indictment, till December 2013.
These inspections required a technician to use fluorescent throughout the taper bore and let it keep for a time period. The penetrant would then be eliminated and a lightweight can be shined within the taper bore to determine any cracking.
Penetrant inspections had been essentially the most time consuming of the inspections, and the technician cited that because the reasoning for requesting its elimination.
The investigation into the crash discovered that the propeller had cracking and corrosion within the taper bore earlier than heading to inspection at Robins in 2011. The indictment says that the Navy and the Air Drive weren’t instructed in regards to the elimination of the penetrant inspections.
“The tradition at [Robins] from 2011 to 2017 resulted in gross negligence of depot degree upkeep personnel and practices which might be the direct causal issue for the mishap,” the investigation report states.
Steve Farese, considered one of Fisher’s lawyer’s, stated that the jury noticed by way of the “false premise” that Fisher waived the process to examine the blade.
“We had been capable of present that he didn’t signal that type. Somebody had lower and pasted an e mail that he had despatched to another person and used that as their validation for eradicating the method,” Farese stated in an interview Tuesday with 13WMAZ, a tv station in Georgia.
After the decision, Fisher instructed 13WMAZ that the case confirmed broader points throughout the upkeep course of at Robins and everybody collectively let the service members down.
“To have the whole lot of the DOJ working towards you to attempt to make you a scapegoat for that horrible tragedy, it was terrible,” Fisher instructed the outlet. “And to get to the purpose the place it was over, it was wonderful.”
Cristina Stassis is a reporter masking tales surrounding the protection trade, nationwide safety, navy/veteran affairs and extra. She beforehand labored as an editorial fellow for Protection Information in 2024 the place she assisted the newsroom in breaking information throughout Sightline Media Group.
