The plane, an EA-6B Prowler, severed a gondola cable that was 370 feet above the ground on Feb. 3, sending 20 people in the gondola plunging to their deaths.

The 1998 Cavalese cable car disaster happened during his tenure in Rome; in the accident, a U.S. military aircraft flew too low, severing a gondola cable, resulting in the deaths of 20 skiers.

The news conference largely dwelt on the accident in Italy last year in which a Marine Corps plane on a training mission severed ski gondola cables, killing 20 people.

Marines Drop Charges The major charges were dropped against the navigator of a Marine Corps jet that hit a gondola cable in Italy and killed 20 people, but he will still be tried on one count.

More than a year after a Marine Corps jet hit an alpine gondola cable that was not on the crew's map, the Pentagon has not updated its maps.

In the elongated instant that Capt. Richard J. Ashby saw the gondola cables in the path of his Marine jet, it was too late to change course enough to miss, yet the collision still seemed an eternity away, he testified today at his court-martial.

They include enforcing a flight floor in Italy of 2,000 feet above ground; the gondola cables were about 360 feet above ground.

A11 Payments in Gondola Accident Italy's Senate passed a bill to award almost $2 million in compensation to the families of each of the 20 people killed when an American military jet sheared a gondola cable in the Italian Alps last year.

All four men aboard a Marine Corps jet that severed a gondola cable in Italy last month, plunging 20 people more than 300 feet to their deaths, have been charged with negligent homicide and involuntary manslaughter, a Defense Department official said tonight.

A14 Marine Court-Martial Acquittal Capt. Richard Ashby, the pilot of a jet that cut a gondola cable in Italy, killing 20 people, was cleared of homicide and manslaughter charges.