A former engineer at a U.S. military air logistics center has been charged with making false statements and obstructing justice during the investigation into a 2017 plane crash in Mississippi that killed all 16 service personnel aboard, federal prosecutors have announced.

James Michael Fisher, 67, was arrested Tuesday after a federal grand jury in northern Mississippi indicted him.

The Context

On July 10, 2017, a United States Marine Corps KC-130T transportation aircraft crashed near Itta Bena Mississippi. This crash resulted in the death of fifteen Marines and one Navy Corpsman.

This crash was one of the deadliest in recent Marine Corps history.

The plane was based at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, was transporting Marine special operations forces from North Carolina to Arizona for training.

What We Know

James Michael Fisher, formerly of Warner Robins Georgia and currently residing in Portugal was arrested on an indictment issued by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Mississippi. Fisher was a Lead Propulsion Engineer at Warner Robins Logistics Centre.

According to a press release shared by the Unity States Attorney's Office Northern District of Mississippi, Fisher concealed engineering and lied to investigators about his past decisions that might have been related to the crash.

The release states that "FISHER knowingly concealed key engineering documents from investigators and made materially false statements to criminal investigators and made materially false statements to criminal investigators about his past engineering decisions."

Fisher was apprehended in Jacksonville, Florida, and now faces two counts of making false statements and two counts of obstruction of justice. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Mississippi, Fisher's actions were part of an attempt to avoid scrutiny for his engineering decisions.

An investigation that was conducted in 2018 revealed that the plane crash was caused by a deteriorating propeller blade that was corroded when it entered an Air Force maintenance depot in 2011. Workers there had failed to fix the blade and sent it back to the fleet unrepaired, according to the Military Times who reported on the investigation back in 2018.

The Military Times reported that the neglect over the blade allowed a routine corrosion problem to metastasize into a crack that went undetected for years until the crash of the KC-130T plane.

The worn-down blade failed and came loose from the propeller causing the crash. The blade shot into the sign of the aircraft, setting off a cataclysm which killed everyone on the plane and left the aircraft in three pieces, according to the Military Times.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Scott Leary and Philip Levy are prosecuting the case. The investigation is being conducted by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service​​.

What's Next

Fisher made his initial court appearance in Jacksonville, Florida. Fisher's trial date has not yet been set. If convicted, the former engineer faces a twenty-year prison term.

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