U.S. Military Blamed for Fatal Crash at Italy Resort

TRENTO, Italy —  A U.S. military plane on a low-level training flight over the snowy Alps sliced through a cable-car line Tuesday, sending a gondola full of skiers crashing hundreds of feet to the ground. At least 20 people inside the car died.

The car was flattened by the 240-to-300-foot drop. It “opened up like a cardboard box,” one police official said, and bodies were in pieces.

Officials at the U.S. air base in Aviano in northern Italy, where the Marine EA-6B Prowler was based, said all low-level missions by U.S. military aircraft in Italy had been suspended.

President Clinton, on a visit to New Mexico, issued a statement saying that he was “deeply saddened” by the accident and that the United States will cooperate fully with the Italian government to find out what happened.

The pilot and his three-member crew returned safely to Aviano, 60 miles southeast of the ski resort, said Brig. Gen. Tim Peppe, commander of the base’s resident 31st Air Expeditionary Wing. The plane sustained minor tail damage.

Peppe, speaking at a news conference at Aviano, did not speculate on a cause, although he discounted engine trouble.

The line’s other gondola was heading down at the time, and the accident left it stuck and dangling. Rescuers pulled out its operator, the only person aboard.

In Washington, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the pilot “was apparently unaware that he had struck a cable or injured anyone.”

Base officials said U.S. pilots fly dozens of training missions over Italy every day. The plane is a surveillance aircraft attached to the NATO force overseeing the peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The accident occurred at 3:15 p.m. under sunny skies at the ski resort in the Val di Fassa area of the Dolomite mountains near Trento. The cable car was traveling from the town of Cavalese, 20 miles northeast of Trento, to the top of Cermis Mountain, site of the popular local ski resort.

One of the victims was the car’s Italian operator. The rest were skiers, at least six of them German, said a police officer Robert Cavada in Cavalese. RAI state television said that two victims were Hungarian and two were Poles.

The accident drew an immediate political response in Italy. The Communist Refoundation Party, which traditionally opposes the U.S. military presence and supplies the government with a majority in Parliament, renewed its call to close the Aviano base.

Other leftist parties demanded an end to U.S. military flights over inhabited areas and punishment for the pilot.