The Government Says an Air Force Worker Skipped Important Maintenance Before the 2017 Plane Crash That Killed 16 Troops
Federal prosecutors say in new court documents that a former Air Force civilian engineer who oversaw maintenance at Robins Air Force Base got rid of an important inspection method that could have found a worn propeller blade before it caused a KC-130 Hercules crash in 2017 that killed 16 soldiers.
James Michael Fisher, 67, was arrested on July 2 by federal officials as part of their investigation into the crash in Mississippi. He used to be the lead engineer in charge of maintaining the C-130 propellers at the Georgia base. He is being charged with two counts of making false claims and two counts of obstructing justice.
In an indictment, federal prosecutors said that Fisher let technicians stop doing a key inspection process on propeller bores. This meant that a broken propeller blade was put back into service, even though “intergranular cracking was not detected and remediated at Robins.”
“Fisher was also one of the key decision-makers who removed the critical inspection procedure in August 2011,” lawyers say.
The Marine Corps KC-130, call sign “Yanky 72,” was carrying 15 Marines and one Navy sailor when it quickly crashed in a soybean field in Leflore County, Mississippi, on July 10, 2017. According to federal prosecutors, the propeller blade was put back on the plane.
A fan blade that came loose was found to be the cause of the crash. A Marine Corps investigation into the crash found that this “started the catastrophic sequence of events that led to the midair breakup of the aircraft and its uncontrollable descent and ultimate destruction.”
Fisher’s link to the “Yanky 72 incident” was made public on the seventh anniversary of the July 10 crash.
“Gross negligence” in the way maintenance is done at Robins Air Force Base was shown by the crash investigation, but “Fisher and the System Program Office avoided scrutiny,” federal officials said. It was decided to look into a crime in 2020.
In that criminal probe, “federal agents learned that the earlier Marine Corps investigators were misled about what maintenance procedures were in place in the late summer of 2011,” as well as “in August 2011, engineers at Robins authorized the removal of a critical inspection procedure for detecting C-130 propeller blade defects,” the indictment says.
Investigators started to focus on Air Force Materiel Command Form 202. This is the form that maintenance workers must fill out when they need to ask for permission to make repairs that aren’t exactly like the ones in the technical guides. Fisher reportedly agreed to such a request to get rid of an inspection meant to look into propeller cracking in August 2011, but he denied doing so.
“Fisher’s statement that he would have never removed the penetrant inspections was false,” the charge says.
“Federal agents later uncovered the Aug. 19, 2011, email in which Fisher stated that he had ‘no problem’ removing the penetrant inspections and also discovered the other Blanket Form 202s in 2012 and 2013 in which Fisher, as the assigned engineer, had recommended removal of penetrant inspections.”
Fisher is accused of lying to detectives and keeping information about those forms from people who are looking into the crash.
“Fisher attempted to obstruct the criminal investigation by intentionally withholding documents showing that he played a crucial role in removing the critical inspection procedure and providing false statements to federal agents to cover up his role in removing the critical inspection procedure,” the indictment says.
Fisher didn’t answer the phone or text messages I sent him Wednesday asking for his thoughts on the new information in the charge.
The next step in the case is not clear from the court papers, nor is Fisher’s next court date. But records from the time he was arrested in Florida show that the 67-year-old man is now free on a $10,000 bond and has given up three U.S. cards. A press statement from the Justice Department said that Fisher was living in Portugal before he was arrested.
In the case files, it says that Fisher could go to jail for up to 20 years for hiding records, eight years for dealing with a witness, and five years for lying to police. There is also a fine of up to $250,000 that could be given for all four charges, but courts rarely give the highest punishment.