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Oregonian to Widows: Shut Up

"Moreover we take it as a given that the Air Force is just as interested as anyone in discovering what caused the crash..."

--The Oregonian, April 29, 1997

At the conclusion of the Air Force investigations The Oregonian chose in an editorial to take the King-56 widows to task for questioning the lack of a reasonable conclusion. 

The Air Force and Answers

Blasting military for failing to pinpoint Hercules problem won't bring back Oregon reservists-or make pane safer

Living without their husbands and fathers is tough enough for the families of the Oregon Air Force reservists killed in the November 1996 crash of an HC-130 Hercules.  Living without knowing what exactly sent the plane into the Pacific Ocean must be a special agony for these families.

That said, we don't see much that will change any of this in the decision of five widows to lambaste the Air Force for failing to find the cause of the Hercules' crash.  It's not as if the service has not tried.  The Air Force has conducted two good independent investigations of the crash.  The problems with those investigations are not the Air Force's doing.  Rough seas undercut attempts to bring parts of the craft to the surface.

Continued efforts would be costly and even dangerous for those involved, and there's good reason to wonder what Air Force investigators would ultimately learn from any additional wreckage.  They already know that fuel to all four engines was lost.  Is it not possible that engineers could solve this puzzle without the need for more wreckage?

Moreover, we take it as a given that the Air Force is just as interested as anyone in discovering what caused the crash of one of its planes and the deaths of seven Air Force reservists.  Its people, after all, are still flying these planes.

"We are families in crisis with small children, and we cannot find peace," one of the five said Sunday.  That's all too true, and our hearts can only go out to them in their sorrow.  But we're far less sure of her further claim that the women and children who lost loved ones in the Hercules crash "deserve an answer" from the Air Force.  No, we only know what these families did not deserve-but are suffering nonetheless.