JAG CENTRAL

Sgt. Daniel Lee Galvan, CW3 Rogers's Alleged Victim (Honolulu Advertiser)

News from the Honolulu Advertiser:

A veteran Schofield Barracks helicopter pilot faces court-martial on charges including negligent homicide and reckless endangerment after a Black Hawk crash in Afghanistan last August that killed the helicopter's crew chief, the Army said.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Darren R. Rogers also is charged with violating an order and negligent destruction of government property, the Army said. Trial is set for May 3 at Schofield Barracks. Rogers is with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment.

Sgt. Daniel Lee Galvan, a 30-year-old father of two from Moore, Okla., was killed in the Aug. 12 crash near the Pakistan border. Three other crew members and 11 Marines were injured.

Initial reports said the Black Hawk developed mechanical problems and went down outside Camp Salerno near Khowst.

However, Galvan's widow, Sonya, said the crash actually occurred in a "nap of the earth" low-level pass while the troop-carrying chopper piloted by Rogers was waiting to take part in a "quick reaction force" demonstration for a visiting VIP.

Nap-of-the-earth flying is the closest to the ground, trees or other obstacles conducted by the Army, usually at 25 feet or less.

"They were on standby for a maneuver ... and during that time that they were waiting, (Rogers) decided that he was going to show the Marines nap of the earth," Galvan said. "He did a dive, and on the second dive he couldn't recover."

Galvan said that in the transition to a dive, which momentarily created zero gravity, wheel chocks in the cabin floated in the air and came down on the helicopter's collective, which is used to control rotor blade pitch, and the chopper crashed.

Galvan said the wheel chocks coming down on the control was partly to blame, "but regardless of the chock blocks, they were at an altitude too low to ever recover the helicopter."

Rogers, reached at home on O'ahu Friday, said "that (the nap-of-the-earth dive) wasn't what caused it," but referred all other questions to his military attorney, Capt. Darwin Strickland. Strickland, a trial defense attorney at Schofield Barracks, declined to comment.

Sonya Galvan said her account is based on Army reports that she has obtained on the accident. The Advertiser could not independently verify her account.

ANALYSIS: If the widow's account is accurate (note that this is a hearsay account of a supposed Army report that may or may not exist), this is a classic case of "cowboying." This is a term that Army Aviators use to describe pilots who fly outside the rules and outside the mission as briefed. According to Army Regulation 95-1, before every flight, each pilot must get a mission briefing and risk assessment signed by their company commander or a higher ranking officer in the chain of command. On the mission briefing, the pilot must state the route of flight, flight altitude categories (or as Army aviators call them, flight modes), and other information. If CW3 Rogers is being charged with violating an order, this is probably the result of deviating from the mission briefing and flying "nap of the earth" (treetop level).

That said, it is extremely rare, if not completely unheard of, for military leaders to actually charge negligent pilots with a crime, even when death results. Usually, administrative sanctions are chosen, including temporary grounding, permanent disqualification from flight service, or even getting administratively discharged from the Army.