Court-martial for 3 NCOs in wake of EOD death - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Court-martial for 3 NCOs in wake of EOD death

It was supposed to be a routine detonation of unserviceable ordnance and a morale booster for a couple of dozen troops at Joint Base Balad, Iraq.

Instead it turned into a nearly 30-minute nightmare that left Senior Airman James Hansen dead and one soldier severely wounded.

Now, 13 months after the accident, three noncommissioned officers have been charged in Hansen’s death.

Two of the NCOs — Master Sgt. Garet Vannes and Tech. Sgt. Gregory Divito Jr. — face dereliction of duty and negligent homicide charges. Tech. Sgt. Matthew Hefti has been charged with dereliction of duty and negligent homicide.

If convicted of all charges, Vannes and Divito could be demoted to airman basic, dishonorably discharged, confined for three years and six months, and made to give up all their pay and allowances. Hefti could face a maximum sentence of three years and six months confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and reduction to the grade E-1.

Article 32 investigations for the three NCOs were held over two days in June; the investigating officer recommended charges for the airmen not be referred to a court, according to Hefti’s lawyer, Capt. Kevin Gotfredson. The charges, however, were referred under the recommendation of Lt. Gen. Robert Allardice, vice commander of Air Mobility Command, the general court-martial convening authority.

The courts-martial are scheduled for late October and November and the airmen will be tried at their home stations, according to the online docket of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. All have Air Force lawyers.

Air Force Times contacted the Air Force for comment from the lawyers. The service did not respond.

The Air Force also did not respond to questions about what challenges it faces in prosecuting the airmen separately but provided a statement through spokesman Todd Spitler.

“The Air Force is deeply saddened by the loss of an Airman and the injury to a U.S. Army soldier,” Spitler wrote in an email. “We place a high priority on the safety and well-being of our personnel and demand accountability from our airmen to ensure it. Under the military justice system, all accused are considered innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

All that Emily and Rich Hansen want is justice for their son.

“I want to see the NCOs step up and stand up and say that they take responsibility for it,” said Rich Hansen, a retired master sergeant. “Be an NCO and accept that responsibility.”

15 September 2010

Six explosive ordnance disposal flight members assigned to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing placed charges to set off 35 M1028 anti-personnel tank cartridges.

Three were Vannes, Divito and Hefti. The other three were junior enlisted airmen, who the Air Force will not charge, according to Spitler.

“An initial investigation and release of the [ground accident investigation board] report into the death of Senior Airman Hansen was provided to commanders,” Spitler wrote. “The commanders then exercised their judgment — based on the facts outlined in the report — to make an evaluation on the degree of culpability of the individuals involved in the incident as well as the appropriate action.”

Vannes, an EOD craftsman with 18 years of experience, was the team chief that day. He was accompanied by fellow EOD craftsmen Divito, who had 12 years of experience, and Hefti, who had eight years of experience and served as the range safety officer, according to the accident investigation report.

Nineteen troops who were not EOD techs acted as observers; six, including Hansen and an Army staff sergeant, volunteered to detonate the charges, the report stated.

The type and amount of ordnance being detonated required everyone to stay 2,092 feet from the detonations and to have protection both in front of them and overhead, according to the report.

The EOD techs put the volunteers under a concrete structure 769 feet from the detonation area and the other observers took positions around the structure, according to the report

Vannes conducted a safety briefing for both his team and all of the observers. Then, according to the report, Hefti stood in front of the volunteers and directed the first volunteer to initiate the first detonation by pulling a mechanical cord. A few seconds after the first blast, Hefti directed the second volunteer to pull the cord. The report doesn’t name any of the volunteers except Hansen.

Things went horribly wrong. A large piece of an M1028 cartridge base plate struck Hansen in the chest and came out his left side, killing him almost instantly, according to the report.

The impact of the blast was so powerful that the same fragment that killed Hansen struck the Army staff sergeant in the right forearm and the left groin area. His wounds were life-threatening and required tourniquets to both his arm and his leg, according to the report.

Five days after the accident, Air Force Materiel Command appointed Col. John Franz to investigate the accident. AFMC took charge because it oversees Hansen’s home-station squadron, the 46th Operations Support Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

The investigation took nearly a month, from Oct. 13 to Nov. 11, 2010, and found four procedural violations:

• The detonation used three times the permissible amount of explosives.

• The base plates of the M1028 tank cartridges being detonated pointed at the troops, not away from them.

• The explosion took place on level ground instead of in a trench; troops had never dug a trench for a detonation at Balad.

• The observers were too close to the blast, standing in a concrete shelter 769 feet away instead of the 2,092 feet required for M1028 rounds; the shelter, built before American forces arrived in 2003, does not provide frontal protection for anyone in its northeast side.

As a result of the accident, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing no longer allows observers for EOD operations — a well-established and approved program under EOD Flight Operating Instruction 32-3002 and the range site plan — and has suspended routine controlled detonations, said Bowman, the unit’s spokesman.

“While these actions remain in effect, current EOD flight members have resumed all other normal EOD activities,” Bowman wrote in an email.

‘We can’t move forward’

It’s been a tough year for the Hansens, who spoke to Air Force Times in separate telephone interviews.

They learned about the procedural failures that contributed to their son’s death. They met the Army staff sergeant, who is still recovering from his injuries. And now they’re summoning the strength to talk about their son at each of the courts-martial. The Air Force has asked the Hansens to speak on behalf of their son.

“It’s so different because we don’t have an ending yet,” Emily Hansen said. “If he was somebody who was killed by a roadside bomb, it would be over, but it’s been a year now and we can’t move forward.”

All of the NCOs have been back at their home stations since January, when they redeployed after a normal rotation, according to Maj. Brian Bowman of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing.

Vannes is assigned to the 35th Civil Engineer Squadron at Misawa Air Base, Japan, and Divito is a member of the 92nd Civil Engineer Squadron at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. Hefti returned to the 22nd Civil Engineer Squadron at McConnell Air Force Base, Kan.

Hefti, represented by Gotfredson of McConnell Area Defense Counsel, was scheduled to go on trial last Tuesday. Divito, represented by Maj. Jeremy McKissack and Capt. Aaron Roberts, both assigned to the Air Force Legal Operations Agency, has a trial start date of Nov. 15. Vannes, represented by Capt. Jacob Ramer and Maj. Darrin Skousen, also of the Air Force Legal Operations Agency, is scheduled to be in court Nov. 28.

Rich Hansen is looking forward to the trials so he can tell each of the NCOs how losing his 25-year-old son has changed so many lives.

“I want them to understand how this has turned our lives upside down,” said Rich Hansen, who now works for the Defense Logistics Information Services. “Their actions not only turned our lives upside down, but [the Army staff sergeant’s] life upside down, as well as our friends and family.”

Emily Hansen recalls how excited Jimmy was the last time they spoke.

Her son had called home via Skype to say hello to the folks who his parents had invited over for a party on their new deck. He had been in Balad for about five months, according to his mother, and was looking forward to coming home in November and proposing to his girlfriend, Megan Bottomlee.

“He told us about going to watch the detonation,” she said. “That was Saturday. He was killed on Wednesday.”

Some mornings Emily Hansen wakes up and doesn’t believe that her Jimmy is dead.

“I never want a mother to go through this,” she said. “It was so unexpected. I know so many moms where their sons are Marines or in the Army and they have to prepare themselves for this, but when your son is stationed on a base where he’s supposed to be safe and they tell you he died, it’s so shocking.”

Rich Hansen knows the responsibilities of a senior NCO and contends the airman in charge — Vannes — failed to do his job that day.

“I know there’s policy and procedure. There’s a checklist of rules and regulations and guidance,” he said. “To get that accident report and realize all of the things that they did incorrectly — to me it screamed … that whoever was the senior NCO wasn’t providing proper leadership.

“He became one of the guys.”

Emily Hansen can’t understand why more care wasn’t taken when doing something dangerous such as detonating explosives.

“I worked as a frontline supervisor for a factory that made air-conditioning parts and I had to sign off every day that I’d checked this, or that I’d checked that,” she said. “If I hadn’t, I would have lost my job. I can’t wrap my brain around being in such a dangerous career and being so lax about regulations.”

Emily Hansen said she hasn’t decided what she will say and she doesn’t know what they’ll hear at the courts-martial or how it will affect them.

The one thing she knows for sure is that she and her husband want justice for Jimmy.

“I’m going to do it for my son,” Emily Hansen said. “I want them to know that he was a person, not just a name on a piece of paper.”