Safety is main concern of Osprey victims' relatives

By PAUL DE LA GARZA

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 13, 2001

After she got done reading the letter from her husband, Marine Corps Staff Sgt. William Bryan Nelson, Stacey Nelson tossed it in the trash. Not that she wasn't tickled by what he wrote. She just knew another letter would be on the way.

A few weeks earlier, when he'd gone off on assignment out of state, she'd loaded him down with a stack of stamped, self-addressed envelopes. And sure enough, Bryan would write.

"Hey baby!" began the letter, dated April 5, 2000.

"I received the picture of baby Nelson. It is sooo cute!

"It is really hard to believe that Bryan Nelson has a beautiful wife, soon to be two beautiful children and a house with a dog. It is all because of you. You have given me this wonderful life and I thank you for it. I love you very much!

"Well, I am going to work.

"Love, Bryan."

He would never write to her again.

On the day Stacey got the letter, April 8, 2000, Bryan and 18 other Marines died in a plane crash in Marana, Ariz. They were on a night training exercise involving the trouble-plagued MV-22 Osprey, which takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like a jet.

Last Friday, Stacey, 31, wept as she read Bryan's letter to a four-man review board in Arlington, Va., gathered by order of the Pentagon to take public testimony on the $40-billion Osprey program to help determine its fate. Since 1992, 30 people have been killed in Osprey crashes.

But the relatives of the Arizona crash victims who testified Friday -- three widows and a sister -- did not plea for the program's cancellation.

"Rather," said Stacey, echoing the sentiments of the others, "our first and greatest priority is simply to ensure that no other Marine is asked to give his life until this aircraft is safe."

If the Pentagon were to go on sheer emotion, surely the Osprey would be doomed. The relatives who testified, armed with photos of their loved ones in dress uniforms, articulated their pain in a way that spread tears across the room.

"If this program was rushed along to meet deadlines, advance personal agendas, curry political power or financial gain, it would be at the most unspeakable and unconscionable," said Connie Williams Gruber, one of the widows. "At the very least," she said, "it would be disturbing, distasteful and downright disgraceful.

Her husband, Maj. Brooks Scott Gruber, was the co-pilot in the Arizona crash. At the hearing, she sat with Trisha Brow, the wife of pilot Maj. John Brow.

The Marines have attributed the crash to "human factors," meaning the pilots erred. At the hearing, both women asked the panel to clear their husbands of any wrongdoing.

After billions of dollars in research and development rooted in the 1950s, the Osprey has yet to go into full production. Yet another fatal crash in North Carolina in December prompted the corps to ground its eight test aircraft.

Meanwhile, recent allegations of data manipulation by the Marines, who emphasize honor above all else, have cast doubt on the program's survivability. In 1989, citing its astronomical cost, Vice President Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, tried to cancel the program, but politics got in the way.

If, however, a separate investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general were to discover that the Marines did in fact engage in fraud to get the Osprey into full production, the program would be under renewed political pressure to fold.

The Marine Corps, which wants the Osprey to replace its Vietnam-era CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopters, is in line to get the bulk of the aircraft, about 360. The Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa is slated to get 50 modified versions of the aircraft.

Last week, investigators traveled to MacDill as part of the review panel's investigation.

On Friday, several speakers defended the Osprey, reviving the argument that with any new technology in aviation, fatal accidents will occur. In addition to its military applications, supporters cited the potential for commercial use.

"It would be a big mistake to abandon something that is a winner," said Daniel Schrage, director of the Center of Excellence in Rotorcraft Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

As Stacey ended her brief presentation, painting a sketchy portrait of Bryan, who was 30 when he died, the audience sat in silence.

After the hearing, reporters swarmed the widows. Stacey, who lives in Richmond, Va., where she and Bryan met in high school, was asked why she threw Bryan's letter away. "It was just a note," she said.

When she was notified of his death, though, she rifled through the trash and pulled it out. Now, she keeps a copy in her purse.

"Luckily, I hadn't thrown out the trash yet," Stacey said, smiling.

"That was his job."

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