Alaska News

Attorney: 'Career killer' report for Coast Guard crash survivor

According to the Associated Press (via the Juneau Empire), attorney John Smith said Tuesday that his client, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Lance Leone, will be appealing a decision that would mean an end to his career as an aviator.

Leone, formerly based in Sitka, was the lone survivor of a July 2010 helicopter crash off the coast of Washington which resulted in the deaths of three others. Charges stemming from the crash, including negligent homicide, were dropped against Leone in December at the recommendation of an investigating officer.

The final crash report noted that Leone, the helicopter's co-pilot, failed to navigate and adequately oppose the pilot's decision to drop in altitude seconds before the aircraft struck inadequately marked power lines maintained by the Coast Guard. The lines were the site of two previous accidents.

On Tuesday, Smith said Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo, the Coast Guard's commander for Alaska, recommended in a new report that Leone not be promoted or allowed to participate in flight operations again.

Smith called the decision "a career killer" and said that Leone will soon be transferred to "a nothing job" in Texas.

"I think that the final real insult to all of this is the Coast Guard is doing this, they are taking advantage of Lt. Leone to hide their own misconduct in attention to detail and, quite frankly, their own criminality," Smith said.

Read much more, here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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