TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Missing Pilot's Case Reviewed

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: January 5, 2009

WASHINGTON - The family of a Navy pilot missing since his plane was shot down during the Persian Gulf War isn't ready to give up hope that he is alive and say they will oppose any decision to declare him killed in action.

The Navy has scheduled a review board hearing for today on the status of Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, who has been missing since January 1991, when his FA-18 Hornet was shot down in Iraq on the first night of the Persian Gulf War. Speicher, who had lived near Jacksonville, was the first American lost in that war.

THE HEARING: The hearing comes several months after the Navy received a fresh intelligence report on Speicher from Iraq.

SPEICHER'S STATUS: The Pentagon has changed Speicher's status several times. He was publicly declared killed in action hours after his plane went down. Ten years later, the Navy changed his status to missing in action.

In October 2002, the Navy switched his status to "missing/captured," although it has never said what evidence it had that he was ever in captivity.

Another review was done in 2005 with information gleaned after Baghdad fell in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The review board recommended then that the Pentagon work with the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the Iraqi government to "increase the level of attention and effort inside Iraq" to resolve the question of Speicher's fate.

The Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks missing-soldier cases and works with other intelligence agencies, submitted its latest report last fall.

THE DECISION: The final decision on changing Speicher's status must come from the secretary of the Navy; the review board's decision is a recommendation. The board has up to 30 days to complete its report. Speicher's family would then have 30 days to comment before it is forwarded to the secretary for decision.

SPEICHER'S FAMILY: Speicher's family, which has seen the latest information, thinks Navy Secretary Donald Winter is moving toward changing Speicher's status from missing/captured to killed, according to family spokeswoman and attorney Cindy Laquidara.

The family, including two college-age children who were toddlers when Speicher went missing, thinks the Pentagon should do more to determine definitively what happened, Laquidara said. They see the outcome as setting a standard for future missing-in-action investigations.

Laquidara said family members would attend the hearing.

"It's really easy to put out a yellow ribbon but not so easy to allocate resources to find a missing serviceman or woman," she said.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT