[DefenselinkTranscript] DoD News Briefing Thursday, April 4, 1996 - 9:35 a.m. Lt. Gen. Howell Estes, Director of Operations for the Joint Staff --------------------------------------------------------------------------- General Estes: Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You've just seen the U.S. ambassador to Croatia and the Croatian prime minister with a press conference from the site. And what I will try to do is give some amplifying remarks, if I can, on the facts that we know from the search and rescue standpoint. The ambassador and the prime minister obviously covered a lot of the detail there, but I think I might be able to add a few more comments from the military's perspective to be of some help. Let me just again use a couple of slides which I think might be useful in describing the overall incident again. Obviously, we have confirmed now where the crash site is. It is about three kilometers to the north-northwest on the top of a hill, as you heard Ambassador Galbraith describing. The photo that I showed you yesterday again pretty accurately describes the location. I think with a picture of a T-43 here, I know there's a lot of questions -- you heard questions asked of the people there about the black box issue. I think it's safe to say that we have done everything humanly possible on the military side to ascertain whether this aircraft had flight data recorders or voice recorders on board, and the answer we get back continuously from people who are responsible for this aircraft is that it was not equipped with either. What the Croatian prime minister is describing as black boxes, I cannot tell you, but information we have is this aircraft was not equipped with what you would consider black boxes, the voice data recorder or the data recorder itself. The reason is that the aircraft was procured as a training aircraft originally, and so when it came it was not equipped with that from the factory as normal aircraft of this kind that are used for commercial uses would come with those kinds of recorders. If we get any definite information that changes what I've just told you, we'll get back to you as quick as we can. And I know this is an issue which seems to be a difference between what they're saying there and what I'm telling you standing here, but I want to let you know what I'm being told, and we've done everything humanly possible on the military side to be sure our information is accurate. There are boxes on the aircraft, however, that could be instrumentation boxes that literally are black. They're shaped in the form of a box. It's navigation equipment and things of that kind that somebody might construe as being one of these type of black boxes. In fact, the black boxes that are on aircraft are actually orange cases, not black cases, and so that might be where the discrepancy is coming from. But we'll continue to pursue this, and if I have any additional information that I'm -- is made available to me, I'll be sure to get it to you right away on that issue. Okay. Next slide, please. I've elected to use, again, a chart to describe where we are, where the search and rescue and the forces involved -- in fact, we have U.S., Croatian, French, and German up there. We've had some help from the Spanish and the United Kingdom as well in assisting the Croatians and ourselves with the recovery operations. I mentioned yesterday that Brigadier General Mike Canavan is the on-scene commander. He spent most of the night last night and the early part of today at the site. He has come down from the site now and is back down at Dubrovnik's airport. He has been replaced by another senior individual on-scene as the on-scene commander. We have in the neighborhood 30 people at the crash site carrying out recovery operations. The manifest issue -- again, you heard this discussed with the ambassador and the Croatian Prime Minister. There is a slight discrepancy. We have confirmed that there are no survivors and recovery of remains is in progress. Thirty-three remains have been recovered. And so you look at the number of -- saying 35 on the manifest versus 33 remains, there appears to be a discrepancy. We can only say that the search has been extensive. It has continued, as you know. A number of checks of the area have been made, and we'll continue until this issue is resolved one way or the other. Q: Was the crew member a lady? A: The crew member that survived the crash, that died enroute -- I can confirm to you, was a member of the crew and it was a lady. She did die enroute to the hospital. They got her into an ambulance, got out of the crash site which is a very difficult process in and of itself, and did take her enroute to the hospital, but she died as you can see from the slide here enroute. Q: Do you know if she was in the tail section? A: I don't have any additional information on that. The interim accident investigation board, the mishap board is on its way. You heard the Croatian ambassador say it had just arrived. Again, he has better information than I because he's there at the scene. We've been trying to get the team in since very early this morning, European time. They've had a number of weather problems at Dubrovnik, but it looks like the team is now on the ground and will very quickly move up to the site to begin the investigation. And we've already talked to the last issue about the flight data recorders and voice recorders. I think with that, I'll go ahead and take your questions, and we'll go from there. Q: Has Secretary Brown's body been recognized or otherwise positively identified? A: I think what I need to say about that is that the recovery operation continues and we know that there are no survivors, and the objective is now to get that done. The issue of positively identifying remains is not something that's normally done on the scene. Those people are up there to do the recovery operations. And so once that process has been positively completed in terms of identification, the information will be made available. Q: General, what did the air traffic controllers say when they realized that the plane was off-course? A: I have no information. Again, this is something that the -- this is something that the accident board will get copies of as to exactly what the conversation was that transpired between the tower and the aircraft. That's not been made available to me, obviously. Those things are what we would use the term impounded because they are protected so that nobody could tamper with them or lose them or whatever so that they could be made available to an accident investigation. And I, in my position, have not sought out that information. That's for the accident investigation to pursue, not for me. Yes, sir? Q: Can you release the manifest now? A: It's again, not my position to release the manifest. This is obviously a very sensitive issue. They want to ensure that the families, the loved ones of the people who were on board the aircraft have been notified. Once that is complete for the series of people -- obviously, Secretary Brown's family has been notified, but all of the dignitaries that were traveling with him, the members of the Commerce Department, the Croatian families involved, and the U.S. service members crews -- once we are sure that is complete, I feel certain you'll see the transcript of the -- the list released. Q: [Inaudible] -- from the State Department? A: It will be a simultaneous release. I would think, with the U.S. service members released here, the Croatians releasing the names of their lost members, and then the Commerce Department probably releasing the remainder of the names at the State Department. Q: I would like to ask you a little bit about the approach, I don't want you to tell me what caused the crash. I understand you can't do that. He was flying an ADF approach or an NDB approach. NDBs my understanding can be effected by weather, specifically lightening. Is that being considered as a factor in the investigation of what caused the crash? A: Well, I think everything that you can come up with is going to be considered in trying to determine what caused this accident. That's the purpose of the accident investigation team. I can guarantee you that they will be extremely thorough in their analysis in trying to determine the causes of this accident. Q: General, are you -- first of all, are you standing by your statement yesterday that there was no communication prior to the crash indicating any difficulty whether it be off-course or any other problem? And secondly, one press report today referred to this beacon issue, that this is old technology, 40, 50-year-old technology and it's outdated. Can you speak to that? A: Well, I think to answer your first question, yes, I stand by my statement. I have no conflicting information. You heard the Croatian ambassador -- or the Croatian prime minister and our ambassador make virtually the same statement. They've been at the crash site. They saw no evidence that there was anything strange about it from the standpoint of the issues that you raise, and so, I have no conflicting information to what I told you yesterday. In terms of the technology of the beacon, the NDB approach, it is a kind of an approach that's been around for awhile, there's no question about that. But, it's still a very valid approach. We have a very definite procedure we follow. It's a safe approach. Many aircraft have landed at the airport there at Dubrovnik with no difficulties. And in fact, as you know, some landed that morning and early afternoon prior to Secretary Brown's aircraft scheduled arrival. So, we have no reason -- if we thought it wasn't a safe approach, we wouldn't allow our aircraft to use it. I guess that's the easiest answer. David? Q: Some may think they had a radar track for this plane. I mean, did you have this plane on your AWACS tapes? And if so, do we now know the exact route that plane flew? A: David, to answer your question specifically, I have not seen that. I suspect that since we had AWACS flying, that there will be a tape available that they had, but I cannot guarantee you that. I don't know that for a fact. And I just -- because of all the other things going on and the concern for the recovery operation is where we've been focused. I haven't gotten into that issue, nor will I. That will be something for the accident investigation board. Mark? Q: Is it true that the remains will go from Dubrovnik directly back to Dover and then will the military fly the remains from Dover to individual states for families -- A: Mark, this is an issue -- I think, you know, there is some discussion and you all have heard it, that the remains will go from Dubrovnik back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. I think that that is a decision that is yet to be made. There are a lot of considerations that need to be taken into account, and once that decision is made we'll get the information to you. One more. Q: There were reports yesterday, General, suggesting that perhaps some navigational equipment, some radar or whatever, had been removed from the area of the airport by the Serbs during the war. Do you know if that's true or not? A: Yes. I don't have any confirming evidence that that's the case. We know we had a navigation aid at Dubrovnik airport which is a valid navigation aid for which we have a published approach. And so, whether there was additional things there at a previous time I think is -- I can't confirm or deny for you, but it's almost irrelevant because they did have a valid navigation aid which they were obviously using to land. Q: There's been some report suggesting that the pilot was using some visual reckoning and identified the wrong ridge, one ridge over, went in the wrong valley. Is that a theory that seems plausible to you so far? A: It doesn't seem plausible to me as a pilot. I mean, when you're flying an instrument approach, you fly an instrument approach until you have complete contact with the runway and are safe to land. Then you transition from your instruments to a visual approach. You don't come off your instruments until you have visual siting of the runway. So, I find it hard to believe that if they were flying the approach, were on course, that they would have been doing -- trying to fly around visually. It's just not something an experienced pilot would do. Thank you very much. - END - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Defenselink News HomePage] |[Defenselink News Overview]|[ftp original]