JAG CENTRAL

Army CW3 Darrin R. Rogers, Convicted for Negligent Homicide of SGT Daniel Galvan (Honolulu Advertiser)

From the Honolulu Advertiser, word that a Schofield Barracks UH-60 Blackhawk pilot has been sentenced to 120 days prison for a passenger death that resulted after he was "showing off" (I first told you about this case here):

At his court-martial yesterday, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Darrin R. Rogers pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, violating an order and destruction of government property — the $4.5 million Black Hawk — in the Aug. 12 crash near the Pakistan border.

In a plea agreement, Rogers will serve 120 days at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and forfeit pay.

The plea agreement superceded yesterday's sentencing by a military judge. The judge had sentenced Rogers, 37, of Mililani, to 50 months in prison, forfeiture of all pay and benefits and dismissal from the Army.

ANALYSIS: As I said in my previous post, prosecuting pilots for the negligent death of their passengers is extremely rare; usually this is handled administratively. There have been a few courts-martial like this one, most notably the Cavalese cable-car disaster in which two Marine officers were put on trial when their EA-6B Prowler clipped a cable-car line in Italy killing 20 people. However, they were acquitted. (They were later convicted of obstruction of justice in a subsequent trial for destroying an on-board videotape of the incident.) Here, it seems the sheer amount of eyewitness testimony from those on board created a mountain of evidence that CW3 Rogers was "showboating," flying outside of maneuvers briefed to him by his commander. The article recounts CW3 Rogers admissions:

Rogers admitted that during the "high visibility" demonstration for the Marine Corps commandant, Lt. Col. Michael L. Maffett, the acting battalion commander for 2-25, had said "he wanted to be extra safe that day. Don't try to impress anybody."

Instead, while waiting for the OK to conduct the demonstration and flying in circles several miles from Salerno, Rogers decided to give the Marines the "ride" they were looking for.

"So you were just showing off?" asked Judge Col. Debra L. Boudreau.

"Yes ma'am," Rogers said. "Basically, I was trying to impress the guys in the back."

He said that as the helicopter descended, a set of wheel chocks drifted into the cockpit, jamming the controls and preventing him from pulling out of the dive.

Rogers said the maneuver was done at 200 to 300 feet, and when he trains for such flying, it's at 1,000 feet.

The helicopter crashed, rotated and flipped on its side, destroying it. Those onboard received fractures to vertebrae, head wounds, broken ankles and other injuries.